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A L W Y 



A ROMANCE OF STUDY 



X 



BY- 



TAMES CV MOFFAT 



" Who will sh.O"w U.S any good?" — Psalm iv. 6. 






ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY, 

770 Broadway, New York. 



-f^ %^\'^ 



COPYRIGHT, 187s, BY 

Anson D. F. Randolph & Co. 




EDWARD O. JENKINS, 

PRINTER AND 8TMRS0TYPER, 

20 NORTH WILLIAM ST., N.Y. 



ROBERT RUTTER, 
BINDER, 
84 BEEKMAN STREET, N.Y. 



TO 

MARY B. MOFFAT 

THIS VOLUME IS DEDICATED 

IN THE SPIRIT OF A 

DEVOTIONAL AFFECTION. 



PROLOGUE. 



I. 

We welcome thee, Beloved, back to life, 

From deepest shades and border of the grave, 
The dubious and long-protracted strife 

With Death's dread angel, to destroy or save, 

Issues in victory. His pinions wave 
No longer o'er thy couch. And as he flies, 

With all the terrors which his presence gave. 
Faintly the dawn of health begins to rise 
Upon thy pallid cheek and in thy brightening eyes. 

II. 

Again we greet thee cheerily, and move 
No more on tiptoe in thy darkened room. 

Winter meanwhile has passed away. The grove 

Has donned his Summer robes. The gardens bloom, 
And birds flit by on glad and dazzling plume. 

And life, exultant in her bright domain. 

Welcomes thee, too, and calls thee to resume 

Thy wonted place within the buoyant train 

Which crowns with brilliant thought the glories of her 
reign. 

(s) 



6 PROLOGUE. 

III. 
Companion of my common cares so long, 

And fellow-traveler on the paths of lore, 
I joyful hail thee, in the voice of song. 

While climbing slow from Acheronian shore, 

With topics of our fond pursuits once more- 
Pursuits which did with happier days entwine, 

Ere life for us her hues autumnal wore. 
Wisely my lay might public grace decline ; 
But O how much to me that it should merit thine. 



INVOCATION. 



I. 

Ye who delight to mark the unfolding mind, 
Whose bosoms throb in sympathy wich all 

The aspirations, cares and joys that wind 
Around the student in mysterious thrall, 
Smile on my song. No fabled muse I call. 

By inspiration of the heart alone 

My humble narrative must stand or fall. 

Nor boasts it aught to common favor known, 

Ambition's arts or force, on battle-field or throne. 

II. 

The silent changes of the spirit's life, 

Its unseen toil, its arduous flight and slow, 

Passion and Reason's oft-recurring strife, 
And dreary Doubt's intolerable woe, 
Are not, alas ! the happy themes that know 

The favor of the multitude, or bring 

The higher meed which critic pens bestow. 

Nathless, of such I would essay to sing, 

Content that kindred lives confess the truthful string 

(7) 



CANTO FIRST. 



ANALYSIS. 



Canto I. — Alwyn's early love of knowledge — Susceptibility to in- 
fluences of nature — Mountain scenery — The sea — Morning 
among the hills — The sun — Summer noon — Atmospheric war 
— Light and shade — Evening in the country — Divine bounty 
in the adaptation of man and nature — Dawning sense of intel- 
lectual power — Friends, Norman — Among the mountains alone 
— Sympathy with animate nature — Forests, their effect on the 
religious sentiment — Outlines in landscape — yEsthetic and 
moral effect of mountains — Books as expository of nature — 
Romance of fancy — Winter — Learning to turn the materials 
oi nature and reading to the service of fancy — First question- 
ing of causes — Alwyn begins to despise Norman's simple 
Christian faith. 



ALWYN: 

A ROMANCE OF STUDY. 



I. 

What recks to tell of birth and long descent ? 

Is not the spirit from Jehovah sprung ? 
Enough that Alwyn from his childhood bent 

Him to the toils of knowledge, and among 

The free wild mountains ^vas his fortune flung 
Almost as free ; and lone, and far away 

From all the bias of the babbling tongue, 
His work conversed v/ith Nature, and his play 
Was o'er the learned page to linger night and day. 

II. 

Nor yet unread the old inspired page 
Of living fact writ by the hand of God, 

And on its margin stamped, from age to age, 
Too oft, alas ! in characters of blood, 
With record of the path which man has trod. 

Nor did the heavens, with light-bespangled train, 
Of blessed lives the unprofaned abode, 

Nor yet the seasons, in their changeful reign, 

Their bounty and their wTath, roll over him in vain. 



12 ALWVJV. 

III. 

Yea, from the gates of childhood had he loved 
The drama ever new by Nature spread 

Among the hills and woods, where he had roved 
Whither her beauties and her wonders led. 
And fondly at her bounteous bosom fed, 

Ere thought had started queries for the sense, 
Or yet reflection was to feeling wed. 

Unthinking of results to issue thence, 

Incurring risk and toil, their own good recompense. 

IV. 

Where streamlets, rushing down the mountain side, 
Leap in their giddy haste from lin to lin ; 

And overhanging groves, in solemn pride 
And mystic twilight, shut their chorus in 
As with a temple, where the murmuring din, 

With song of birds, half plaintive and half glad, 
The worship speak of those who cannot sin, . 

He oft would linger till their influence had 

A kindred feeling wrought, as happy and as sad. 

V. 

Or when the angry winds raved through the glen. 
Driving the stormy legions in their wrath. 

On some high cliff, far from abodes of men, 
Would he delight to watch the tempest's path. 
As it swept on o'er mountain, lake, and strath, 

With all its cloudy train in long array. 

And the wild grace which Nature's fury hath. 

Till he would long to leave his form of clay, 

Rise on the warring winds, and mingle with the fray. 



ALIVVJV. 13 

VI. 

Or where the Atlantic breaks upon the shore, 

Anon, in storm or calm might he be found. 
Filling his soul with that harmonious lore 

Taught by the Ocean's everwailing sound ; 

Or gazing on the troubled billows, crowned 
With snowy foam, or on the slumbering tide, 

Whose feeble surges from the coast rebound 
In dreamy murmurs low ; while far and wide 
It seemed in the blue sky its distant bounds to hide. 

VII. 

When Summer morning crowned the hills with gold, 
And stretched their lengthened shadows o'er the plain, 

When early shepherd hastening to the fold, 
Or mountain ranges of his wild domain, 
Gave to the breeze his spirit-prompted strain, 

'Twas to the enthusiast boy a draft of new 
And sweeter life the highest peak to gain. 

Whence all the varied landscape, bursting through 

The lower twilight, lay like pictures to his view : 

VIII. 
The effulgent orb ascending from the deep 

Of nether space, bathed in a flood of light, 
The dewy uplands, which all night did weep 

His absence, now rejoicing in the might 

Of his returning, tenderly as bright, 
Like gladdened Beauty smiling in her tears : 

The obscure beyond,— skirts of retreating night 
'Which still upon the western verge appears, 
Like half-defeated foe, yet struggling with his fears. 



14 ALWYN. 

IX. 

The snow-vv^hite mists along a hundred vales, 

Slumbering in silence by their hidden streams, 
And as the invading day their rest assails, 

Slowly ascending on the advancing beams ; 

While here and there some village coppice seems 
An island in the flood of fleecy cloud, 

Melting away before the warmth which teems 
From yon triumphant orb, as if the proud 
Earth had awoke from death and bondage of the shroud. 

X. 

The voice of many waters, shining rills, 
Like living things in wilful song and play. 

Which, by a thousand tiny falls, the hills 

Pour down into the glens ; the ceaseless fray. 
Where adverse streams do battle for the way, 

Their graver rush united, and the roar 
Of the fierce cataract, whose hoary spray 

Is Nature's incense-cloud, and evermore 

The distant river's dash upon its rocky shore ; 

XI. 

And rising with the day the sweeter notes, 

Which draw their daily being from the sun, 
The lark's clear matin hymn, which downward floats, 

As if in joy from heaven already won ; 

The long complaints, which o'er the mountains run. 
From fleecy flocks descending from their lair. 

And far below from labors re-begun, ^ 

The sounds of human life, rising like prayer, 
Blend into sweet accord upon the throbbing air. 



15 



ALWYN. 

XII. 

Father of morning, all-beholding Sun, 

Fountain of warmth and light, without thy ray 

What were this earth but cold and barren stone ? 
Thy glance her oceans and her streams obey. 
Vital activity pursues thy way, 

From morn till even, in meek dependence led. 
Night is thy absence and thy presence day. 
The storm is but the veiling of thy head, 

And every birth of earth is by thy favor fed. 

XIII. 
The pride of Summer is thy steady gaze 

Poured warm and loving from a genial sky ; 
And Winter but thy long-averted face. 

Worlds hang upon thy bounty, and with thy 

Mute influence implicitly comply. 
A wave of splendor and of new delight 

Kindles around the zone beneath thine eye. 
Earth hails thee master of m.aterial might, 
With ever-swelling song and all the charms of sight. 

XIV. 

When Nature, panting with excess of life, 

Beneath the ripe luxuriance of noon, 
Lavished her wealth on the broad landscape rife 

With all the offspring of redundant June, 

Where sighing groves with murmuring brooks commune. 
Where meadows wave, or fields of ripening grain. 

Vocal with insect being's drowsy tune. 
Where listless herds bestrew the grassy plain 
Would Alwyn quaff the scene, till very bliss was pain. 



l6 ALIVVJV. 

XV. 
But when, for many a long and burning day, 

The latest cloud had disappeared on high, 
And the white molten sun pursued his way 

Across the surface of a brazen sky, 

Bleaching the earth with unrelenting eye. 
When withering pastures crumpled to the tread. 

And brooks exhaled had left their channels dry, 
With panting herds he to the shelter fled, 
And looked for Nature's death, as if her source were dead. 

XVI. 
Nor with less awe beheld the Titan war 

Of the returning clouds, so long exiled, 
Their angry hosts assembling from afar 

In masses on the low horizon piled, 

Where glorious light, with darkness reconciled. 
Rested upon their crests, their armor lined. 

But lo ! they come, swift skirmishers and wild 
Sweep o'er the sky, soon with the ranks combined, 
And distant thunder rolls up solemnly behind. 

XVII. 
And heavy drops fall far apart and slow. 

Each on the sand a momentary stain. 
The winds leap forth — an ambuscade — and lo ! 

The forest writhes and tosses as with pain. 

The dust is swept in clouds along the plain. 
Again the thunders issue their command. 

And freely falls the cool refreshing rain, 
Copious, but gentle, and with teeming hand 
Pours down new stores of life upon the fainting land. 



ALIVVN. 17 

XVIII. 
Ye tranquil Summer days, whose breath is balm, 

And soft as rising of the morning dew. 
How little wot we that the child-like calm 

Which fills the soul with confidence in you, 

Is but a truce, the balance nice and true 
Of such stupendous forces — deadly foes, ^ 

Just waiting with the fatal aim in view- 
Ready, when God permits, in strife to close. 
Which shall this solid globe dissolve in mortal throes. 

XIX. 
But evening comes. And over flood and field 

New changes in succession are displayed. 
New outlines on the mountains stand revealed, 

Along the landscape other tints arrayed. 

Reversed the lights and shadows morning made. 
And changed the style of all since morning shone. 

Warmer the light and less severe the shade. 
While over all steals a soft monotone. 
Save where the gorgeous clouds have draped their mon- 
arch's throne. 

XX. 
Shadows— magicians, at whose lifted wand 

The landscape wakes, and lavish to the sense 
Throws life and meaning sparkling o'er the land, 

As kindles up the human countenance 

To inspiration of intelligence — 
Whence your strange alchemy, and by what sleight 
Do gladness, beauty, grandeur, wait your glance, 
The unsubstantial characters ye write 
Along the otherwise unmeaning page of light ? 



l8 ALWYN. 

XXI. 

The sun has set. His rays direct withdrawn, 
Gently comes on the scene of day's decline, 

The shadows all have blended on the lawn, 
Far sounds the low of home-returning kine, 
Shepherds to the high lair their flocks consign, 

The half-reaped field the weary reapers leave, 
Ten thousand insect-notes in choir combine, 

The bird sleeps on the spray, and souls conceive 

That grateful sense of rest v/hich hails descending eve. 

XXII. 
The day was full of wonders. And the night, 

Falling in mystery on the fading view, 
Concealed the wonders of the earth from sight 

Only in heaven to open wonders new. 

As with her dusky fingers she withdrew 
The veil of light diffused, and from on high 

Poured revelations of creation, through 
The opened darkness, on the gazer's eye. 
And filled with worlds of light the daily vacant sky. 

XXIII. 
And as he gazed, and thought of each bright star 

As in itself a world,— for so much lore 
Had reached his mountain home, — and tried afar 

Through those stupendous distances to soar, 

His laboring intellect recoiled before 
Its own conception of the depths sublime 

Beyond the bounds of earth's encircling shore, 
And of the cold dead silence, through all time. 
In which those orbs roll on their mighty pantomime. 



ALIVVN. 

XXIV. 
Yet Alwyn was no vacant looker-on, 

No loitering child of affluence and ease, 
Upon his lowly birth no honors shone, 

Nor fortune sought his tender age to please. 

But penury enforced her stern decrees. 
Nor did the wise Creator's gracious will 

His childhood from the primal curse release, 
But aye with buoyant hope, more gracious still, 
From some blest fount within, did all his being fill. 

XXV. 

Exuberant flow of ever- gushing joy, 

A mystery of the healthful heart and young, 

Was his, of all the gifts of the Most High, 
That which most fondly to the lovely clung. 
And common earth with heavenly drapery hung, 

Which, like the sun, all other things beheld 
As dyed in hues of its own radiance sprung — 

Gift which all other gifts of time excelled, 

And grief from his young life effectively repelled. 

XXVI. 
Well has His work the mighty Maker made 

In mechanism wonderful in man. 
And all the parts by many members played 

So harmonized into a common plan. 

So blended soul and body into one. 
That all the healthful frame with soul imbued. 

Glorying in existence, its brief span 
A full condensed millennium of good. 
Bounds with exultant joy — impulsive gratitude. 



19 



20 ALWYN. 

XXVII. 
Hear me, Benignant Author of my days, 

Out of whose bounty all my being came, 
In praiseful thanks for the glad life which plays 

In these blue veins, for this material frame, 

Without an organ weak or member lame. 
Whose pleasures need nor artifice nor stealth. 

More to my happiness than power or fame. 
More than all treasures of redundant wealth. 
And for a soul to feel this glorious joy of health. 

XXVIII. 
And to the woods and hills and running streams. 

And fair, green grassy lawns his heart did burn 
With overmastering love. And in the dreams. 

Which Fancy conjured round him, did he turn 

All to account of splendors which would scorn 
The actual wealth of kings. And far above 

The utmost bliss that all their power can earn. 
Was his at large among the wilds to rove. 
Yea, blest as a young bride in her first maiden love. 

XXIX. 

How wonderful Thy bounty, mighty God, 
So richly to endow the human soul. 

Granting it o'er Thy universe -abroad 

To rove and gather blessing from the whole. 
Yea, to create, and pleasures to unroll 

From that which never was and ne'er shall be. 
And self-sufficing and above control 

Of the gross substance, which we hear and see. 

Of its own joys and woes to hold the master key. 



ALIVVN. 21 

XXX. 

And then, from time to time, a warmer fiam.e 

Eclipsing other feelings of the hour, 
Would rush exultant, thrilling through his frame. 

The premonition of a coming power, 

A strange, wild rapture glorying in the dower 
Of God within himself, as greater far 

Than all he prized the most in tree, or flower, 
In hill, or plain, or sun, or distant star — 
Voice of a pent-up gift he cannot yet unbar. 

XXXI. 

This vague anticipation, whence and why, 

This feeling that I cannot now, but shall, 
This consciousness of energies that lie 

Inactive in the spirit's arsenal ? 

It came to Alwyn like the secret call 
To the boy prophet ; but no Eli lay 

Beside him in the temple, who could tell 
That it was God who spake. In His own way 
Did God Himself instruct His pupil, day by day. 

XXXII. 

But one wise teacher had the Holiest given, 
In wisdom and in knowledge far above 

Her humble rank, rich in the lore of heaven— 
A lovely mother, whose young heart of love 
A few brief years with fondest effort strove 

To mold his pliant soul to truth and God, 

Of faith and hope and prayer a garment wove 
"^For his defense on life's unsheltered road. 

Then vanished with the call to a more blest abode. 



22 ALWYN. 

XXXIII. 
Nor were companions lacking — leal and true, 

Though unsophisticated peasant hinds ; 
They loved him well, although they never knew 

His better life, the mystery that binds 

External nature with concordant minds. 
And oft they smiled at his impassioned love 

Of such dead things as hills, and streams, and winds, 
Nor was himself aware of aught above 
Their thinking among whom his thoughts had learned 
to move, 

XXXIV. 
And in young Norman found, if not a mate 

To all his tastes, at least the complement 
Of his affections. Upon neither sat 

The burden of ambition. Well content. 

In humble toil alike their days they spent. 
Though far apart their mountain pastures lay, 

And few their meetings ; yet with wonder blent, 
Did Norman's love upon his neighbor stay — 
The dreamy boy who had such weird-like things to say. 

XXXV. 
And Alwyn loved the lad, whose riper years 

More than himself of common duties knew. 
Who humbly practical,, as his compeers. 

Saw more than they from Alwyn's point of view. 

And more in him the practical seemed true, 
Than in more practical and older men ; 

But most his sweet affections gently drew 
Kindred affection to himself again. 
Yet ne'er did Alwyn feel so far away as then. 



ALWVN. 23 

XXXVI. 

Yet in his daily tasks among the lone 

And pathless mountains, from the earliest ray 

Of golden morning, till the last was gone 

That warmed the evening sky, his Summer day 
Passed far from sight of human life away. 

Hills, streams, and rocks, and sighing trees became 
To him society, and in the play 

Of living things his heart would often claim 

That sense of glad relief man's absence gave to them. 

XXXVII. 
Where herds intent upon the pasture grazed, 

And nibbling sheep far o'er the mountain spread, 
And hares limped by, and listening, stopped, and raised. 

With ever-moving ear, the timid head. 

And the wild deer came nigh with fearless tread, 
And birds hung o'er him on the bending spray, 

For hours would he recline beneath the shade, 
And yield himself submissive to the sway 
Of the unspoken laws those humbler lives obey. 

XXXVIII. ; 

Imbibing deep their inarticulate 

Brute sympathies, with sympathy sincere ; 
Pondering existence in that strange estate, 

Where, without sense of duty, law, or fear 

Of future ill, the living persevere 
In filling the Creator's true intent. 

He felt himself attracted to their sphere, 
So humble, yet so free from all complaint, 
Without a sin, and yet unconscious of restraint. 



24 ALWYN. 

XXXIX. 

And much he sought the forest dense and old. 

A strange, unhuman charm resided there ; 
And in the sombre twilight, damp and cold, 

Which bade the venturous foot of man forbear, 

He found attractions such as dangers wear. 
An awful thought that the Almighty God, 

Such as He reigned ere man was made, and ere 
Christ was revealed, still had His dread abode 
In those old shades, to him was like a wizard's rod. 

XL. 

Majestic trees, earth's ancient garniture, 
Primeval forests, which so fondly cling 

To the wild places, which your life secure 
From the destroying enemy, ye bring 
Conceptions of creation's early Spring, 

Ere man's vicegerency had yet begun. 

And when in herb, and stream, and living thing, 

In heat, and cold, and cloud, and golden sun, 

God solitary reigned, and all His will was done. 

XLI. 
Not without cause did self-reliant wills. 

Who followed intuition as their guide, 
In early times seek God among the hills, 

And 'neath the forest spreading far and wide ; 

Not without cause were altars multiplied 
In the dim twilight of your ancient groves, 

Where still a mystery seems to abide, 
A presence which the sinful heart reproves. 
And where the lonely foot in reverent silence moves. 



ALV/YN. 25 

XLII. 
And when I rest beneath your sighing boughs, 

Till in your spirit all my own is clad, 
Where passing zephyrs sound like solemn vows, 

Forbidding still, as Nature once forbade, 

Approach of ill, with music soft and glad. 
By wild-birds carolled and by streamlets purled, 

I feel as if I too had been half sad 
To see the cloudy veil from Eden furled, 
And love your dear old remnant of an earlier world. 

XLIII. 

Upon the outlines, which the mountain's crest 

Boldly against the distant sky defined. 
His oft-recurring gaze would fondly rest. 

To variant affections, which combined 

Therewith, all still and passively resigned ; 
Held in the meshes of that mystic charm. 

Which in its mastery o'er the human mind, 
To soothe or to arouse, depress or warm, 
.Lives in those soul-subiiuing boundaries of form. 

XLIV. 
What tranquil rest reposes in the sweep 

Of curves re-entrant, what joy and pride 
Soaring with those which boldly overleap 

The finite, and the easy grace allied 

With undulations which in life preside ; 
The dull, depressing angle of the tomb, 

The line direct with tiuth intensified, 
All share in the' dominion lines assume 
Over the realm of souls to joyfulness or gloom. 



26 ALWYN. 

/ 
XLV. 
And ye wild mountains, features of the globe^ 
Which else in one dull curvature would lie, 
Who weave the varying shadows which enrobe 
Her mighty form with graphic drapery ; 
Alone of all her scenes ye lift the eye ■ 
And soul to what the better life beseems,— 
The resting-place of clouds where Deity 
By ancient men was held to veil His beams, 
Patrons of modest vales and ever-laughing streams ; 

XLVI. 
Deep in whose bosom nestles weird Romance, 

In many a solemn glade and dark ravine, 
Where day can seldom send a fleeting glance ; • 

Along whose sides the rolling mists convene, 

Which fairy Fancy peoples with unseen 
But potent elves, a baleful multitude ; 

While soar your peaks in changeless light serene, 
Heaven-scaling Titans ever unsubdued. 
Lords of the picturesque in blended fair and rude. 

XLVII. 
Where were the poetry of earth without 

Your myriad forms ? One universal plain, 
One curve, forever bending round about 

And downward from the eye, one vast domain 

Of one idea, where the wearied brain 
Could find no point of rest ; its lord, the soul, 

Sunk in the ever midst, would seek in vain 
To rise above the dreary flat, its whole 
Conception, or conceive of any loftier goal. 



ALJVVN. 27 

XLVIII, 
'Twas not in sermon read from tree or brook, 

Nor rounded sentiment well set and trim ; 
'Twas not that objects to his fancy took 

Such conscious forms as Art is pleased to limn, 

Nor in their moral lay their charm to him. 
It was enough to live within the reach 

Of things so beautiful, and yield to dim 
Delightful feelings which they mutely teach, 
Unbroken to the yoke of logic or of speech. 

XLIX. 
He loved mute Nature, yet had loved less true, 

But that he loved a brighter region more. 
What fairy fictions, charming to pursue, 

Forth day by day would fertile Fancy pour. 

And as Imagination learned to soar 
Above the world of sense, the eye and ear 

Quickened in their perceptions, and their lore 
Accumulated and became more clear, 
More beautiful itself and of a nobler sphere— 

L. 

Incipient impings of immortal mind. 

Unconscious of itself and its estate. 
Constrained by native bent to seek and find 

Its greatest bliss wherein its gifts are great, 

And, like its Maker, glory to create. ■ 
And books, fair caskets where im^prisoned lie 

Spirits familiar, who only wait 
The turning of the leaf, by him whose eye 
Can break the spell, to wake once more to life and joy, 



28 ALJVVN, 

LI. 
Guided to new excursions, opened out 

New regions, where more varied pleasures spring, 
And charmed away full many a weakening doubt, 

Till Fancy rose on stronger, lighter wing, 

O'er wider realms a clearer glance to fling, 
And in his heart Romance her reign began, — 

Mysterious attractions that will cling 
To deeds of other days and life of man, 
When deep through mystery wind the inklings of a plan. 

LII. 
And old and dingy volumes dyed in smoke, 

Drawn from the shelf of many a cottage ben. 
Would his prolonged attention oft evoke 

While grazed his flock in silence o'er the glen. 

A chalky pebble was his native pen, 
A rock his tablet, and the printed line 

His teacher and his only model, when 
He longed in kindred manner to combine 
Youth's ardent feelings with its vague and crude design. 

LIII. 
But when the blasts of Winter swept the hills 

And piled the snow in w^reaths adown the vale, 
Changed into silent stone the noisy rills, 

Extinguishing the wildbird's joyous tale, 

And filled the air with their own furious wail. 
Severer toils befel his feeble years : 

Yet not the less did his glad vision hail 
The grandeur which in Nature's wrath appears, 
, Her awfulness of gloom, and sadness of her tears. 



ALIVVN. 

LIV. 
Far from the world of meiij alike unknown 

And without knowledge of them or their cares, 
And seldom with companions, to his own 

Still droughts and feelings left, un shaped by theirs, 

And secret of his own, of their affairs 
Inquisitive, he early sought to knov/ 

All that the human heart in common shares, 
Yet learned it only as a fairy show, 
In all the magic light that distance can bestow. 

LV. 

And in. his reading it was Fancy still 
Which marshalled all materials in place, 

Led captive with her own fair hands the will, 
Gathered his knowledge into her embrace. 
And robed the whole with her own airy grace. 

Much had he learned of knowledge deep and true. 
Much laid to heart which time shall not efface, 

Yet had been puzzled sore' to set in view 

Of other eyes one fact of all the mass he knew. 

LVI, 

A happy reverence on his spirit lay 

Like moonlight softened through a mellow haze, 
Its source unseen, its object far away, 

A simple happiness in prayer and praise, 

A sense of duty drawn from earlier days ; 
Without a question how God's work proceeds, 

Wherefore He saves from sin, or by what ways, — 
A pure blind faith all ignorant of creeds, 
Which vaguely trusted One who for the guilty pleads. 



29 



30 



ALV/VN. 

LVII. 
Learning .to wield its earthly instrument 

And grasp the fashion of material things, 
The joyful spirit its young vigor lent 

To every task which promised further springs 

Of new sensation. In the bliss that clings 
To the first intercourse of earth and soul 

Fully repaid for all the toil it brings, 
He garnered stores for future thought's control, 
Though unrevealed the end, the means sufficed the whole. 

LVIII. 
But from the time when sacred Truth began 

To unfold her glories to his wondering eye, 
And partially unveil the hidden plan 

Which sends the seasons o'er the changing sky, 

And bids the sons of men their labor ply, 
A more ennobling passion ruled his breast. 

No longer mere impressions could supply 
Sufficient answer to the spirit's quest, 
Which in the light of truth alone could find its rest. 

LIX. 
One day — -a birthday of the mind to him — 

One of those days, in any life but few, 
When faint affections and impressions dim. 

By long gestation slowly formed to new 

Conceptions, burst m9,tured upon the view. 
On the hill-side he lay, on the smooth green. 

Where oaken boughs their Vv^avering shadows threw, 
Far-off the sea, and pastures broad between, 
Where spread his fleecy charge in safety o'er the scene. 



ALJVVN. 



31 



LX. 

His book lay open by his side unread. 

His thoughts were turned upon an inward page, 
Whereon the questions and the fears were spread, 

Which ever must, in every land and age, * 

The anxious thoughts of thoughtful youth engage. 
" Whence came this wondrous frame, these hills and streams, 

Yon sea, the winds, the endless war they wage ? 
Who made them ? Who sustains them ? Wherefore seems 
All earth to love the sun, and quicken in his beams ? 

LXI. 

" The rivers never weary, even or morn, 

On, on they flow, and ceaseless all night long. 

Whence is their life, and wherein aTe they born ? 
Who sends the clouds ? And what am I among 
Material things so many and so strong ? 

Yea, what is life, and whence its force and joy ? 
What gave the ox his strength, the bird his song ? 

Who taught the eagle's wing to soar on high. 

And knew so well each humbler being to employ ? 

LXII. 
" And wherefore is there death ? And why the law 
Whereby the young continually supply 
The place of those v/hom age or force withdraw ? 
Who made yon sun ? Who spread that lofty sky ? 
Who carved those vales ? Who built the mountains 
high ? 
What are they made of ? How did they begin ? 

Strangest of all, myself, yea, what am I ? 
Not long ago I woke, as if v/ithin 
Eternal night my sleep had co-eternal been. 



32 



LXIII. 
" A long, dark night behind me, and before 
Impenetrable darkness yet to come ! 
How have I slumbered into life ? No more. 
*'Tis vain such depths with human line to plumb. 

'Tis vain to question where all earth is dumb. 
But this delightful waking, wherein blend 

Both joys and sorrows, and of which the sum 
Is ever-growing blessedness, must tend 
To some most glorious issue, some exalted end. 

LXIV. 
" Is it to last forever — to remain 

While God endures, or to return to sleep, 
And never, never, never wake again. 

While years on years their endless courses sweep ? 

One thing I know, before me, dark and deep, 
An awfulj vast eternity is spread. 

And endless life or endless death I reap. 
It baffles all my thinking." Struck with dread, 
With wildly throbbing heart he rose and reeling head. 

LXV. 
What danger in himself could it forebode .'' 

A vague, oppressive horror filled his mind. 
And as along the mountain side he strode, 

Seeking to toss his questions to the wind, 

Insanity seemed striding on behind. 
The emotion passed away ; but from that hour, 

His style of thought was of another kind. 
More trenchant it might be, of greater power. 
But darkened with a care, whose clouds will ever lower. 



ALJVVN. 33 

LXVI. 
In vain the charms of nature lure his eye 

To fill itself and rest in outward things, 
In vain enchanting 'figures floating by 

On Fancy's fairest, most voluptuous wings, 

And ardent Sense her warmest magic flings 
Over the living world. A nobler glow 

Kindles his soul ; and in its holiest springs 
The cause and mystery of life to know 
Would he full gladly all the joys of sense forego. 

LXVII, 

A deeper gulf had opened now between 

Him and his rustic peers ; that which divides, 

With shadowy bounds, the unseen from the seen. 
What new ambition in his life presides 
Norman will never know. A master guides 

The steps of Norman by another way 
As lofty, as mysterious, one which hides 

Itself as truly from the common day, 

And to be seen demands, not less, a heavenly ray. 

LXVIII. 

Each had his revelation from on high ; 

Yet neither saw the other's aim aright ; 
Each is entranced by the new realms that lie 

Unveiled before his spiritual sight. 

And yet their joys their spirits disunite. 
'Tv/as not blind faith, but knowledge, Alwyn sought ; 

He loved his friend, but held his reason light ; 
And yet, who knows but higher reason wrought 
In him, whose mind possessed the feebler powers of 
thought ? 



CANTO SECOND. 



ANALYSIS 



Canto II. — Earnest pursuit of knowledge — Study of language — 
Truth contained in a national tongue— Treasures of power 
stored in it — Classic reading, Homer, father of romance — 
Pindar, Greek lyric — Authors of Tragedy — Philosophers — 
Plato, Aristotle, Lucretius — Horace, Cicero — Work of Greece 
in the progress of human culture — Work of Rome — Place of 
Cicero in that work, and its relation to that of Greece — Caesar, 
his relation to the world's history. 



CANTO SECOND. 



I. 

To know himself, his being's source to know, 
The speech of outward things to comprehend, 

What duties from his true relations flow. 
And whither all the streams of being tend, 
With numerous queries which begin and end 

In the vast field such boundaries include. 

Henceforth were points whereon would Alwyn spend 

Long, patient thought, aiming as best he could. 

To reach by inward light all intellectual good. 

II. 

At first, 'twas but a vague, though strong desire 

Which had not yet well ascertained its aim — 
The half-decided kindling of the fire — 

The reddening glow before it bursts in flame. 

With reverence had he learned each honored name 
Among the teachers of the world of old, 

And expectation from their lofty fame. 
Looked to their works as treasuries to hold 
All wisdom which the mind of mortal can unfold. 

(37> 



38 



ALIVYN. 

III. 
Long labor, and from ruder labors won, 

Unveiled the mysteries of their ancient speech — 
Long labor yet, ere half the work was done, 

Conferring treasures sense had failed to reach. 

The unconscious depths of language, into which 
He found compressed the heart life of a nation, 

What it had suffered, what it had to teach, 
Of its most shrinking secrets the confession, 
Hidden by each, and yet by all embodied in expression, 

IV. 
Wondrous the wealth of living truth that lies 

Deep in a national tongue, as in the earth 
Unseen and inconceivable supplies 
Of nourishment for vegetable birth — 
The magnet stones of sorrow and of mirth, 
The tillage of the wise. As earth bestows 

On every plant all that its wants call forth, 
So language, ere her noblest writers rose, 
Had soared to all their heights and fathomed all their 
woes. ' 

V. 

The grand ^olico-Ionian Greek - 

Tuned the heroic harp to epic deeds. 
The idiom v/hich laboring thinkers speak 

Is ready framed for all that reasoning needs : 

Expression which spontaneously proceeds 
From earnest life is deep as life can be ; 

And literature must follow where it leads 
Through labyrinths of power mysteriously. 
And Shakespeare finds in speech a greater still than he. 



ALJVVA^. ^g 

VI. 
The power of Truth — persuasive eloquence — 

The mastery of assemblies — the command 
Of nations ; in attack or in defence, 

The weapon most effective for the hand 

Of enemy, most trusty to withstand : 
The gentlest touch to soothe the wounded heart, 

The breath of love and friendship the most bland ; 
All conquests made in science or in art 
Are bound up in the gift which words to men impart. 

VII. 

And what were God to us without the Word — 
The written Word — the message from on high? 

A power inscrutable, unseen,- unheard ; 

And all the hopes that cheer the Christian's eye, 
Making it Christ to live, and gain to die, 

Must have remained forever unrevealed. 
A silent God were but an empty sky. 

His truth unuttered, and Himself concealed, 

What could His works of love, or hope, or pardon yield ? 

VIII. 
And what were man to man himself without 

The marvellous legacy which words inclose — 
The answers to inquiry and to doubt. 

The story of his race, and how it rose, 

The duties which its birth and life impose, 
The local mother-tongue, with all its ov/n 

Inheritance of memories, joys and woes, 
As every gifted soul, in its own tone 
Hears and records the events upon its pathway strewn ? 



40 



ALJVVN, 

IX. 

And ever lame the effort to translate 

The senthnent of long successive dteds : 
The diction which experiences create 

From the profoundest depths of life proceeds. 

Such words are spells, are histories, are creeds ; 
And he alone hears the reviving strains 

Who feelingly the native symbol reads. 
While meditation through deep learning drains 
Thoughts of a type, which now in words alone remains. 

X. 

Thus, day by day, would the enraptured boy 

Dwell on the strains of old Maeonides, 
Drinking with new and still increasing joy 

The intoxication of his harmonies. 

Forever varying, like the voiceful seas ; 
But to himself as true, as simple, grand. 

What living interest v/armed the Epopees ! 
What graphic art portrayed the Epic land ! 
While Nature seemed to yield her sceptre to his hand. 

XI. 
To yield her sceptre, not to lead her slave, 

Nor dictate copy, as to common men. 
However great the merit it may have 

Her writing to transcribe with faithful pen, 

A greater gift was his, whose mighty ken 
Revealed the Epic world — in the untrue 

To Nature's rule and measure to retain 
The charm of Nature, whereby men shall view 
All Nature's life, in lives which Nature never knew. 



ALWVN. 4^ 

XII. 
A glorious world, a region all his own 

Is that evolved in the great minstrel's song — 
The land of Greece— but Greece in mythic dawn, 

While gods enjoyed their paradise among 

Her hills and streams, and when her men were strong 
As thrice their number in historic days. 

No earthly science educates his tongue. 
The tale he tells, the pictures he portrays, 
And all his power of verse, the gift a goddess pays. 

XIII. 

His heroes till the land, and sweep the seas 
With potent touch, as kings might condescend 

To vulgar toil,— and with an Ariel's ease- 
Divine and human in their being blend ; 
And in romance their glorious force they spend. 

Yet such they are in sentmient and deeds 

As Nature would have made them had she planned 

Her wori in heroes ; and still thence proceeds 

That wherein song's fair realm the realm of fact exceeds. 

XIV. 

Father of glad Romance, first to suffuse 
The airy fabrics of the brain with truth, 

To school in measured art the Aryan muse, 
And out of mythic tales the most uncouth 
And wearisome, with all their depth in sooth, 

To weave the web of Epic, and to take 
Captive all ages of admiring youth ; 

Founder of all that fiction, which can make 
Itself such place in art as fact can never shake. 



42 ALWYN. 

XV. 

The Theban eagle, in his sunward flight', 

Alwyn pursued with charmed and eager eye, 
. Whether through darkening clouds, eluding sight, 

Or flashing out in evening's richest dye, 

Or in eternal Truth's serenest sky 
He soared in light, wooing the pure desire 

From earth's renown to nobler things on high. 
Then o'er its ashes mourned the Cean fire, 
The wreck of Lesbian song, and Sappho's broken lyre. 

XVI. 
How the heart gladdens in its own bright dream 

Of old vEolian and Doric song ! 
Bathed in the beauty of that lyric stream, 

Whose waves alone the history prolong, 

All nature smiles ; that then were woe and wrong, 
That then were irksome toils and cloudy days 

We overlook. Like future to the young 
So to the cla:sic taste the past conveys 
Only the poet's world, the magic of his lays. 

XVII. • 
The joyous Melas seems to fill the air, 

The buoyant music of a sunny clime, 
And Elegy, her sister, not less fair. 

With holy Dithyramb, in her sublime 

Religious ecstacy, blend in the chime 
Of choral chants, and festive melodies, 

The voice of Hellas, in her golden prime. 
And Ceos, Lesbos, Thebes and Sparta rise 
In Fancy's fairest light, to Fancy's dazzled eyes. 



AL WYN. 43 

XVIII. 
To him whose study was the lone hillside, 

Beneath the open firmament, among 
The woods, the glens, the land-invading tide, 

There seemed a tie of kindred to belong 

To the great father of dramatic song 
With agencies of Nature's mountain reign, 

Whereby the wild, the beautiful, the strong, 
Obeyed his wand, in vast serial train, 
As if a Gothic sky had arched the Greek domain. 

XIX. 

Yet Sophocles more deeply moved his heart 

With pathos of a calmer, steadier glow — 
The model symmetry of tragic art, 

Where line on line, accumulative, slow, 

Fate's dark decrees inevitable grow 
Around the path of unsuspecting man 

To all the agony of hopeless woe. 
Borne on -the tide of law, the eternal plan 
Of that almighty will, which mortals cannot scan. 

XX. 
The shrines of old Philosophy he sought. 

And Xenophon's sweet page conned o'er and o'er. 
How pure the lucid precepts which it taught, 

And lofty was the object of its lore, 

Fragments of heaven- descended truth it bore. 
The being of an all-pervading One, 

Whose mankind are, and whom they should adore;. 
It taught in lines of light, but light tha,t shone 
On the inquiring mind, as distant, cold and lone. 



44 



ALJVVN. 

XXI. 

But aye, again, again, that charming flow 

Of sentence calls the lingering student back. 
Streams of Socratic dialogue bestow 

Verdure and health upon their graceful track ; 

And common sense, not here the common hack, 
But minister of truth to noblest end, 

Alike without redundancy or lack, 
Does well its message to the heart commend, 
Which has no scheme to build, no dogma to defend. 

XXII. 

And then on Plato's bolder wing he rose 
To loftier flight, and more extensive view. 

Where rays of purer intellect disclose 

A fairer world, uncircumscribed and new. 
And strains of eloquence the air imbue. 

The faultless labors of the sacred Nine, 
Whose harmonies the willing soul subdue. 

How would he dwell upon the graceful line 

In dalliance with truth, and reveries divine, 

XXIII. 
Now playing with a web of gossamer. 

To which the breath of Zephyr were a shock, 
Now soaring giddily to regions where 

The glowing rays his waxen pinions mock ; 

Then slowly, surely, as on living rock. 
Ascending by the steps of argument ; 

Or stooping some deep secret to unlock 
Of thought or passion, while through the extent 
Of all his range Delight still followed as he went. 



ALWVjV. 45 

XXIV. 
If down from cloudland to the solid earth 

Wise Socrates the muse of Science drew, 
Diviner Plato to her place of birth, , 

From earth and clouds alike returned her view. 

He who in God the prime ideas knew, 
Must recognize, all dimly though it be. 

In every type of thought and things, a true 
Outgrowth of God ; and thus alone can see 
Truth in her changeless forms from all eternity. 

XXV. 
But over much delusive radiance hung, 

And much was far and indistinctly seen; 
Conjecture to the fairest pictures clung. 

And esoteric phrase would intervene, 

To shade the meaning with its cloudy screen. 
Though much of Deity, of men and things 

Those wondrous volumes taught, yet more, I ween, 
Was also faintly sketched to guide the wings 
Of young inquiry on to more abundant springs. 

XXVI. 

But more exhausting warfare did he Vv'age 

With obstacles impeding human thought 
And its expression, when Stagira's sage 

Before the eye his sterner labors brought, 

His cold analysis, his language caught 
From Reason's purest stream, but brief, unkind. 

So closely fitting the conceptions taught. 
So unillustrative, the laboring mind 
Shrank from the homage due to knowledge thus en- 
shrined. 



46 ALIVVAT. 

XXVIL 
And yet in that inevitable grasp, 

Which like a higher instinct seized on truth, 
Holding it forth in unrelenting clasp. 

As an anatomist the muscle — and in sooth 

With just as little sentiment of ruth 
Over its withered life — there was a new, 

Peculiar charm for the inquiring youth, 
Which long his deep laborious studies drew, 
The tints, indeed, were cold, the drawing still was true. 

XXVIII. 
But even from truth so chilling, bald and hard, 

He turned away at last in weariness, 
The prelude of the philosophic bard 

Luring his spirit with elate address. 

And noble was that symphony, nor less 
The grandeur of the whole ; but drear the gloom 

Of soul-denying doctrines, which impress 
Upon the heart a cold, dark awe of doom. 
Of Godless, hopeless fate, and an eternal tomb. 

XXIX. 

And yet was ever song more weirdly grand, 
With. richer beauty in its flowing lines ? 

Fragments of Eden in a desert land, 
"Where desolation with luxuriance joins, 
And Mirage draws her falsely fair designs — ■ 

The weight and blackness of the thunder-cloud. 
Edged v/ith the glory of the light which shines 

From the deep hidden sun. How lowly bowed 

Was heavenly song to theme of dust and death avowed ! 



ALIVVN. 

XXX. 
Brief time, Lucretius, in thy strange domain 

Did the inquiring spirit choose to dwell. 
Not all thy harmonies could long retain 

The captive in the magic of their spell, 

While to the soul no tale of life they tell- 
Atoms and empty space, and cold and heat, 

With appetence iastinctive to compel — 
Are these the universe ? And must we greet 
As father of our souls the lifeless bread we eat ? 

XXXI. 

The theory of Horace might be slim, 

But if " insane," did not afflict him long. 
And better far the fickle, weak or dim, 

Than logical consistency among 

Ideas boldly harmonized in wrong, 
Compressed, distorted, without sense of ruth, 

Into a system seeming fair and strong. 
Fallacious snare of undiscerning youth. 
By binding the untrue in common bonds with truth. 

XXXII. 
A wisdom his emancipate from cant. 

From shiboleths and limits of the schools. 
With shams and falsehoods gayly militant. 

The praise of virtue and the scourge of fools. 

Teaching in methods unapproached by rules, 
Precise, yet flowing ; negligent, yet terse, 

With genial fancy, which it never cools 
The precepts of the sagest to rehearse. 
Enrobing truth in fair concinnity of verse. 



47 



48 ALIVVN. 

XXXIII. 
Far other was thy glory, Cicero, 

Most fertile genius of the Roman name, 
Whose glowing tones of eloquence bestow 

But half thy green inheritance of fame. 

Pure statesman hero, toiling to reclaim . 
A sinking country and a vicious age, 

Who lived a life scarce faction dared to blame. 
And nobly died to stem the tyrant's rage. 
Hail freedom's martyr, hail benign eclectic sage ! 

XXXIV. 
What wisdom in thy pen, from all the past 

Culling the fruits matured, though sparsely sown. 
From tomes at which even Study stands aghast. 

And works whose grain of truth had else unknown 

Gone to the grave to which themselves have gone ; 
From labyrinthine systems all the good 

Weaving into the beauty of thine own. 
Enrobing virtue of the manliest mood, 
In noblest, sweetest style that e'er reflection wooed. 

XXXV. 

*Twas almost evidence of truths uproved 
To find the richest thinker of old Rome 

Grasping with fondness all that Plato loved. 
For did not souls so nigh of kindred come 
From the same regions of their pristine home ? 

The Greek to dare the higher flights of mind. 
Till his own subtle speech recoiled therefrom. 

But thou, great Tully, wast by Heaven designed 

An utterance of thy time, a voice for human kind. 



ALivvm 

XXXVI, 

Within the limits of life's brief career, 
Within the worldly range of Roman view, 

Whoe'er proclaimed more cogently and clear 
The purest practice of the good and true, 
Or with a firmer hand exemplars drew 

From life, life's joys and duties to display — 
Alike in what from man to man is due, 

And what the spirit to itself should pay — 

Or lit with holier light its latest earthly day. 

XXXVII. 
But of the ultimate design in man, 

His origin, his life beyond the grave. 
And all that constitutes the Almighty plan 

In virtuous being, or His will to save 

The erring, though thy happy genius gave 
The noblest views unaided reason might, 

To nought of all belief unwavering clave. 
The dafa lay removed from human sight. 
In God's own councils hid, and in primaeval night. 

XXXVIII. 

'Twas thine, great offspring of Hellenic sires, 
From ruder efforts of the earlier time, 

From scanty thought and ill-expressed desires, 
From symbol-darkened fragments of sublime 
And God-communicated truth to climb 

To heights of science, where the sounds that rise 
Confusedly from below, become a chime 

Of perfect harmony, and to the eyes 

The far-extended scene blent into beauty lies. 
3 



49 



50 



ALJVVJV. 

XXXIX. 
And Plato. was thine own. His lofty mind 

Toiling in truth, as in a diamond mine, 
Yet clinging to it only as combined 

With beauty and subservient to design 

By chastest art described with touch divine, 
Blest in imagination's richest dower, 

The truest as the grandest type of thine. 
Conferred the crown on thy peculiar power, — 
Power that must wane, yet last till time's concluding hour. 

XL. 
Yea, Plato was thine own. In vain we seek 

Among thy workmen in the world of thought 
Another, who so verily the Greek 

On Grecian woof so fair a tissue wrought, 

Making all thine from whencesoever brought ; 
Not he, who once in Oriental stole. 

In Metapontum and Crotona taught, 
Not Socrates, whose comprehensive soul 
Embraced all human kind — possession of the whole ; 

XLI. 

Not Aristotle, only Greek by half — 

A half, indeed, of Titan magnitude, 
Yet only half — " The wheat without the chaff," 

Retorts some dialectic, v/ell imbued 

With mysteries of figure, term and mood ; 
And justly so, were it enough to know, 

And all were done when truth is understood ; 
Yea, only Greek by half, Parnassus' snow. 
Without his Delphic shrine and smiling vales below ; 



ALIVVN. 

XLII. 

Not Zeno, who despised thy love of art, 
And wove a system inhumanely pure, 

In which thy darling pleasures had no part, 
Whose fetters for the honors they insure. 
Thy haughty Roman masters might endure, 

Believing thus their virtues to recall, 

While monster vices failing still to cure — 

But ill-befitting was its gloomy thrall 

Thy gayer sons, who sought the beautiful in all ; 

XLTII. 

Not Epicurus, though a dearer name 

To thy own children, and the Greek supreme 

Deemed of Lucretius, who has clothed his fame 
In colors of a splendor to beseem 
The incarnation of an opium dream ; 

Thou lovedst pleasure, but 'twas not to float 
With eyes averted down the giddy stream. 

Just blest enough to firmly fail to note 

The dangers of the way and frailties of thy boat ; 

XIJV. 
Nay, not a name among the boasted seven, 

Nor of the mystic Eleatic three. 
Can claim that ethnic honor, proudly given 

By grateful souls of thinking men in thee. 

To him the sage of the Academy, 
Whose plastic spirit, once for all defined 

In shape for all succeeding time to see. 
That fair philosophy which Grecian mind. 
Though striving oft in vain, still natively designed. 



51 



$2 ALIVYN. 

XLV. 
Far other was the work of lordly Rome. 

Not hers to watch and wait the dawning thought, 
Till troops of new and dazzling fancies come 

From the deep bosom of preceding nought, 

Or that dark chaos whence unseen are brought 
The atoms of conception. Not in her 

Was it that innate Beauty ever sought 
For self-development, or dared to stir 
Those springs of pure delight which new-born thoughts 
confer. 

XLVI. 
Far other work — to conquer and to rule, 

To stamp her impress on each neighboring land. 
For this she culled from every Grecian school 

Wisdom matured to guide her forceful hand, 

And rifled every mystery of command, 
To build a structure of enduring laws. 

And government which should forever stand, 
To force obedience and to v/in applause 
On the foundation laid of Nature's deepest cause. 

XLVII. 

Let others search for truth, and prove it true, 

Her mighty arm was destined well to wield 
The tempered weapon, while its edge was new, 

In actual combat on the living field ; 

Till even they by whom it was revealed. 
Rejoiced submissive in that sovereign reign, 

Which to their doctrines wider range could yield, 
Beholding the results of studious pain 
Diffused by Roman hands through all her vast domain. 



53 



ALIVVN. 

XLVIII. 
Greek to discover, — Roman to diffuse, — 

To bear the seeds of knowledge all abroad, 
The brave protector of the Orient muse 

Who opened up her Occidental road, 

Enlarged the ancient bounds of her abode, 
Till from the sands of Nubia to the Rhine, 

And from the Tigris to the Atlantic flood 
Learning and Rome beheld their arts combine 
To soothe discordant wills and barbarous lives refine. 

XLIX. 
" And who with most effect," did Alwyn ask, 
" Among the cohorts of Rome's mighty men, 
In execution of this mental task, 
Wielded the lucid philosophic pen, 
Pursuing the far flight of Grecian ken 
While winning pupils of the old and young ?" 

Who but the same upon whose diction, when 
Flowing in magic from his living tongue, 
The listening thousands long in silent rapture hung ? 

L. 

Then was it not of appetence divine — 
The inly felt commission from on high — 

Which led great Tully to the greater shrine 
Of Academic wisdom, to supply 
Its practical defects from stores that lie 

Scattered among the schools of every creed ? 
Yea, such the guidance of the Eternal eye, 

That all their toils to one result might lead. 

And nations should confess the spirit's worth and need. 



54 ALIVVN. 

LI. 

Yet master, as he was of all the range 
Of his own art and of his native tongue 

Commanded, like a wizard, every change, 

The grave, the gay, the gentle, and the strong, 
And distant ages still his praise prolong ; 

Was there not one a truer type of Rome, 
In all her majesty of right and wrong. 

Her law abroad and laxity at home. 

Her lordly power to rule, as force to overcome ? 

LII. 

Not suddenly, but grandly, line by line. 
Self-drawn did Caesar rise before his ken, 

Clothed with the mastery of a gift divine, 
By personal fascination to enchain. 
To wield the might of armies, or the pen, 

Or gather legislation in his hands, 

Greatest of Romans, if not first of men. 

Whose name still as the name of empire stands, 

And still the living as the ancient world commands. 

LIII. 

Two masters, born in times not far apart, 

Have to the world its highest culture lent. 
One planted his commission in the heart. 

The other in the forms of government. 

And now, almost two thousand years are spent, 
And still those mighty masters rule the same, 

The world's best order follows their intent 
And Ceesar still divides with Christ the claim. 
And over against Christ's is ever Caesar's name. 



ALJVVN. 



55 



LIV. 

Yet Caesar's power is waning, and must wane, 

And Christ's the narrower once, expands meanwhile, 
And will expand, though Caesar's must remain 

Till Christ has vanquished violence and guile. 

One or the other, in his several style? 
Must rule where men are upright or refined. 

With force or love our lives we reconcile. 
Law or the gospel. The best human kind 
Are Caesar's until Christ is in their hearts enshrined. 



CANTO THIRD. 



ANALYSIS 



Canto III. — Alwyn seeks new sources of instruction — Removes 
to the city — Connection with journalism — Dissatisfied with the 
intellectual results— The university — Definite aims for proper 
self-culture — Seeks facilities for studying the modern literature 
of Continental Europe— -Rouen — French literature — German 
— Italy — View of Tivoli — Traces of human antiquity — Their 
effect upon the mind — Hebrew and Oriental literature — 
English literature. 



CANTO THIRD. 



I. 

But Alwyn, while his zeal of learning sped 

From source to source, perceived approaching lack, 

When, at the pastor's shelves no longer fed, 
He must submit to turn its ardor back, 
And pace henceforward in the common track. 

The buoyant heart which had led on so far, 
Bounded once more into the new attack 

On difficulty, in this joyous war, 

Nor felt in " poverty unconquerable bar. " 

II. 

My native mountains, whose grey summits write 

Their daring outlines on the azure sky, 
I love the manly lessons ye indite, 

The self-reliance and the purpose high, 

The liberty of thought which ye supply. 
But 'tis of God, not man ye have to teach. 

And I would also learn of man, and try 
Paths of instruction, which I cannot reach 
Among your wilds, where all is strange to human speech. 

(59) 



60 ALIVYN. 

III. 

" I love it not, the crowded^ murky town, 

Yet there are treasures, which I fain would seize ; 

And Learning there extends her laurel crown — 
Though crowns I reck not, nor her bald degrees — 
Baubles designed the shallow mind to please. 

But much I long to sit at Learning's feet, 

And drink her drafts of knowledge to the lees. 

For this farewell each wild and calm retreat. 

And welcome smoke and dust, the foul and noisy street. 

IV. 

" In thee, my own fair land of hill and plain, 
Of fertile vales and shining peaks of snow, 

I fain would find that intellectual gain. 

If not, then elsewhere must my footsteps go, 
For know I must all God will have me know. 

To part with thee will cost me many a sigh. 
But through my being burns a ceaseless glow, 

Which is my life, and if it dies, I die, 

And if unfed it lives, I burn eternally. 

V. 
" The daily journal is the people's king. 

His ministers are princes. Their control, 
Pervasive as the agencies of Spring, 

And generative as they, as broad and full. 

Insinuates itself into the soul, 
And works its purpose by creating will, 

And through the individual wields the whole. 
In his vast court the lowliest place I'd fill, 
Only to breathe that air of knowledge, good and ill." 



ALIVVJV, 6l 

VI. 

An humble choice ; but not an humble aim. 

Where every athlete strips him for the race, 
Talent asserts successfully her claim, 

And bounds to higher and to higher place, 

'Twixt high and low the distance to efface. 
And sweep the adventitious out of view. 

So Alwyn rose — and rose in public grace, 
Into the columns of the journal threw 
His own deep fervor, and his thinking bold and new. 

VIT. 
Scanty, at first, his skill of men, I ween, 

But quick his tact in everything that lay 
Before him, and of penetration keen, 

He seized upon the topics of the day, 

And dashed them off, in an impassioned way. 
While young assurance passed for conscious might, 

And needed only diction to array 
The news that could be gleaned by ear or sight, 
The public read and praised with wonder and delight. 

VIII. 

Not that in truth or substance there was aught 

In article of his elsewhere unknown ; 
Nothing was there of reach or depth of thought, 

The buoyancy of joyous life alone 

Breathed through his style its warm and gladsome 
Like the aroma of a precious wine, [tone, 

Ineffable in all that was its own, 
It filled the reader's heart with a benign 
Delight, as if he too possessed the gift divine. 



^2 ' ALJVVN. 

IX. 

Successful toil increase of toil incurred, 

Duties fulfilled to higher duties led, 
Until Necessity full often spurred 

To effort which no gushing impulse fed, 

A task not of the heart, but aching head. 
The journal, which at first appeared a friend, 

A messenger of what was to be said, 
Became a monster despot, in the end. 
Whose daily life by lives of men must be maintained. 

X. 

. Wearisome days have mounted up to years. 

And where the lore wherein he hoped to bask ? 
The toil remains, but not the joy that cheers, 

When youthful ardor kindles every task ; 

Gold has flowed in, for which he did not ask. 
Knowledge of things which gave him no concern, 

Mysteries of life he cared not to unmask ; 
But all that knowledge he had hoped to earn 
Seemed further now away and harder now to learn, 

XI. 

Before the world a teacher and a guide 

Of national opinion, to advise 
How men should think, and how they should provide 

For public wants the adequate supplies, 

He stands most painfully in his own eyes 
Unfurnished with a knowledge of the laws 

On which a people worthily relies, 
And all unfit to labor in a cause 
Which from profoundest truth its only safety draws. 



ALJVVN. 63 

XII. 

Disgusted with himself the more he felt 
The grandeur of his work and its demands, 

The uneasy spirit obstinately dwelt 

Upon itself as wrong. The guilty bands- 
Guilty to him — he severed from his hands. 

How much he yet must know of living truth, 
Of present times, their letters and their lands. 

This work in doubt and crudities uncouth 

Could but mislead the mass and squander fleeting youth. 

XIII. 
A true and earnest modesty, in league 

With pride, from aught but perfect work restrained. 
Ah, then, amid reaction and fatigue, 

When effort had the vital forces drained. 

And in his heart humiliation reigned, 
The lowlier aims of Norman did not seem 

Of such a nature as to be disdained. 
At least pretence did not outrun esteem, 
And promise was not more than practice could redeem, 

XIV. 

And was not Norman happy in his way, 

Beloved by one whose warm affections shed 
The purest light of life on every day. 

Rejoicing in the work which earned his bread, 

And with no higher cravings to be fed, 
Save those of simple faith, by which he held 

A life in Christ, his spiritual head. 
Alwyn admired, and yet his heart rebelled — 
By one strong ruling force all other force compelled. 



64 ALJVVJV. 

XV. 
" The holiest, as the highest act of man 

Is to believe the truth, and well to know 
Its circulation in the eternal plan 

Of being. But in the inscrutably slow 

And ponderous round by which the ages go, 
I would explore likewise the written Word ; 

If haply there some Logarithmic law 
Solution of the complex all afford. 
For me let this be love and friendship's sweet accord." 

XVI. 

Within a lovely lawn of fair extent. 

And through whose length a slumbrous river slept,. 
Rose Halls where youth, on lofty themes intent. 

It was presumed perpetual vigils kept. 

No noisy fleets of trade that river swept ; 
No cares distracting ventured to invade 

The cloistered walks where Meditation stept. 

But aye the hush of Sabbath stillness paid 

Reverence to patient thought, which waiting loves the 

shade. 

XVII. 

Light galleys floated softly without sound 
Between the banks of smoothly-shaven grass, 

And bore, as if within enchanted ground, 
Thinkers whose only work in life it was 
To harness thoughts, instructed as they pass, 

Into the service of the good and true ; 
Readers who gather wisdom a.s a glass 

Gathers the burning rays by steady view. 

'Twas what Alwyn had dreamed, but more than Fancy 
drew. 



ALWYN. 65 

XVIII. 
Upon an ancient gate-way dark and low 

He read the word " Humility," and said, 
" Most fit should I beneath that portal go, 

As by humiliation hither led." 

And soon through that " Of Labor " also sped, 
He sought his own consent, with vain delay. 

To pass the gate " Of Honor," ill bestead 
With ignorance which filled him with dismay. 
Till from his mind all thought of honor passed away. 

XIX. 
Of higher import far to him the care. 

Had he acquired what manhood's duties crave, 
The knowledge and the wisdom which prepare 

To rightly use the gifts the Master gave ? 

Harvests of ripened learning round him wave ; 
Yet half it seems to him like doubling sound 

Within a vast reverberating cave. 
From the dark walls a thousand voices bound ; 
And yet in all the tones of only one are found. 

XX. 

The College has its hero, whose great fame 
Her younger sons like breath of life inhale. 

And if the greater number miss the aim, 
And not as his their blanching toils avail. 
They drink, at least, the potion that makes pale. 

The hero may be glorious in his way, 
A Newton, or a Porson, yet entail. 

By force of an involuntary sway, 

A bondage which shall long the step of Truth delay. 



66 ALWYN. 

XXI. 
" Where knowledge is an instrument designed 

To act on human life as formative — 
Though oft v/ith bias obstinate and blind — 

To plastic youth a purposed bent to give, 

'Tis wisely urged by force competitive. 
But why should I, not of the brotherhood, 

Nor wishing ever by such skill to live, 
Subject myself to methods thus pursued, 
And sell my birthright so in every higher good ? 

XXII. 
" Beyond all estimate the truth here stored, 

Beyond all praise the toiling minds, who earn 
Its honors and who coin the massive hoard. 

But what the College knows the youth must learn ; 

Not how to estimate or to discern 
Things independently. Correct and slow. 

Bordered by banks of stone, direct and stern 
As a canal, from centuries ago. 
Its stream of thought flows on, as ever taught to flow. 

XXIII. 
" On the great map of human life the lines 

Of latitude and longitude of powers 
May cover all ; but no such law assigns 

Identity to trees and fruits and flov/ers, 

All gifted with their own respective dowers. 
One sun to all his radiance must impart. 

To all alike the falling of soft showers ; 
And yet each kind grows by a different art. 
So lives its proper gift in every human heart. 



ALIVVN. 6y 

XXIV. 
" That germ of higher life to scrutinize, 

Its proper culture and its aims secure, 
Distinct from what philosophers comprise 

In laws of human nature, must insure 

The highest good, and longest to endure. 
For thus to follow nature is not sin. 

The special gift is in itself most pure. 
Sin is the common lot. Deeper within 
The temple lies the law where virtue must begin. 

XXV. 
" Rouen stands queenly by the winding Seine, 

And gathers gain, who once commanded praise, 
All heedless of her mediaeval reign. 

The warlike grandeur of her early days. 

When knights, the themes of mighty minstrels' lays, 
Trod her resounding streets, her stately halls. 

Enough that England's gold her toil repays ; 
The pride that native once within her walls 

Reigned England's Conqueror, no busy head recalls. 

XXVI. 

" And wherefore should she alway dream of eld, — 
Of rule which never more she can command ? 

Yea, let the empty by-gone be dispelled. 

But why should here that virgin statue stand 
With its condemning memories to brand 

Thy reputation with unmanly crime ? 

Then fell thy arm— the weapon from thy hand. 

Here I arrest my steps. For here things chime 

In with my mood for old, merging in present time." 



68 ALWYN. 

XXVII. 

Thus Alwyn flees afar — yea, far from all 
Who ever knew him or his native speech. 

Not that he hates mankind, but that the call, 
Which ever seems within him to beseech, 
Invites to ends no social labors reach. 
" In this old capital of Normandie 

111 seek again what lonely toil can teach. 

The something above sense God grant to me 

To rightly apprehend, the good in life to see." 

XXVIII. 
And now with clearer purpose to explore 

The mines of thought, his ardent steps advance 
From classic treasures of long garnered store, 

To thy still growing fields, illustrious France. 

Thy formal verse he measured with a glance, 
Which not the pure Racine could long delay ; 

But O, what rapture did his soul entrance 
When o'er thy charming prose he held his way, 
By the quiet mystic led, the Mentor of Cambray, 

XXIX. 

By lofty Massillon, from whence the view 

Embraced two brother streams, far flowing on. 
The broad and full Bosuet, and Bourdaloue 

Direct and rapid as the Alpine Rhone ; 

Rouseau, a fairy hill, but sad and lone ; 
Pascal, a lake, pure mirror of the sky, 

Cold Rochefoucauld in glittering crystals shone;. 
Montesquieu, a vineyard rich and high ; 
A garden Saint Pierre of many a lovely dye. 



ALWYN. 69 

XXX. 

And La Bruyere, and Vauvenargues, Duclos, 
Were cultured farms and fields of waving grain, 

And as a forest tossing to and fro 

In changing winds along a mountain chain, 
The numerous heroes of thy later reign ; 

While many a castle, well defended, crowned 
The rocky steeps, and awed the distant plain. 

Wherein philosophy had early found 

Congenial home, and still retained her vantage ground. 

XXXI. 

And when his journey closed, the lingering strain 
Which longest held possession of his ear, 

Came from the pulpit. In her noblest reign, 
The lettered muse of France, doomed to appear 
Too oft the friend of error, chose to rear, 

As if all future censure to disarm. 

Her fairest structures polished and severe, 

Pure as Athena's temple, of the warm 

Gospel of Christ, in lines forevermore to charm. 

XXXII. 
Grateful we yield what admiration owes 

To controversial fervor in Bosuet, 
To solemn hopes, and Christian repose 

In Flechier ; or higher tribute pay 

To Art, where Nature chooses to obey 
The wand of Massillon ; and for the true 

Native and incommunicable sway, 
The gift which Art, subserving, never knew. 
Nature will fondly claim, with heart-throbs, Bourdaloue. 



70 



ALWYAr. 

XXXIII. 
And then, with ardent, long expectant toil. 

He climbed to other language heights, and viewed 
The scene of Teuton warfare and turmoil. 

Where scholars, critics, sophists urged the feud, 

With erudition vast, and deep imbued 
With theories the outer public's scorn. 

In dreary tomes, laborious, shapeless, crude, 
And yet from out that chaos saw, like morn, 
A nation's literature in glad effulgence born — 

XXXIV. 

A literature self-conscious from its birth, 

Built up by critic skill, to order made. 
By rule prescribed, and yet of native worth. 

Racy and fresh in living truth arrayed, 

Where wisely Art has come to Learning's aid, 
And from the mystic depths of German mind 

Called up a new Parnassus, and essayed 
New forms, in which her products are defined, 
And of the German heart the warmth and worth en- 
shrined. 

XXXV. 
But onward still enthusiasm led, 

Kindling by motion to a fiercer glow ; 
Language itself assumed a charm that fed 

The fervor of pursuit And still to know 

Another and another, and to throw 
Open another gate of thought became 

A triumph and a joy, as if a foe 
Were vanquished. And again to seek the same 
Exultant sense of power was fuel to the flame. 



ALWVN. 71 

XXXVI. 

Those two fair daughters of a Roman mother, 

Who still her old inheritance retain, 
Of majesty, the one, and grace, the other, 

Beneath the skies of Italy and Spain, 

Spread to his eye the wealth of their domain, 
Rich in the fruits of music and of song : 

One in the utmost life from iVrt can gain ; 
The other, artless .truth and passion strong. 
And wild adventure drawn from warfare practiced long. 

XXXVII. 
And thou, O Italy, though for the eye 

A thousand charms thy varied land combines, 
Thy ever-neighboring sea, and cloudless sky. 

Thy fertile plains, traversed by graceful lines 

Of elms that bend to wed the climbing vines. 
Thy mountain ranges, and thy rushing streams. 

Hast yet a magic which no form confines. 
But breathing round one in delightful dreams. 
More to the glowing heart than all the landscape seems. 

XXXVIII. 
Above fair Tivoli the mountains rise 

Shaggy and wild, and wavy lands below 
Extend afar to the engirdling skies ; 

While from her throne of rocks, like sheet of snow, 

Her torrent river plunges, in its flow 
Piercing the opposing ledge, and on its breath 

Wearing, in joyous light, the Iris bow, 
As into Stygian darkness, far beneath 
The giddy, reckless wave descends, like life to death. 



ALJVVN. 

XXXIX. 
Her olive groves and green declivities, 

Her sunny fields which feed the clustering vine, 
Grottoes and glades, to which the herdsman flees, 

And where his flocks at sultry noon recline, 

Are threads in feeling's web that sweetly twine ; 
And yet the eye will turn from all to rest 

With fonder love upon yon Sibyl's shrine ; 
Nor in its fair proportions find the best. 
A dearer gift is there — Antiquity's bequest — 

XL. 

The gift of centuries, memory of a race 

Whose deeds are lessons, and whom to admire 

Is half the way to greatness. Thus we trace 
The lines which Ruin's old domains inspire : 
Here Horace mused, here Tully's soul of fire 

Fed on new beauties, Csesar's march delayed, 
And gay Catullus tuned his graceful lyre ; 

Sallust his graphic pictures here portrayed, 

And lonely musing, here the sad TibuUus strayed. 

XLI. 

Then vague, but vast and glowing visions rise 
Of manful Rome, invincible and free. 

And of a gorgeous empire fierce, yet w^ise 
To hold of wisest men the sovereignty, 
And mold mankind for what they were to be ; 

Visions of classic art and vandal wrong, 
And of a wintry intervening sea — 

Ages of discord, whence harmonious sprung 
The elements of art, when art again was young. 



ALWVN. 73 

XLII. 
Earth holds a concord with the heart of man, 

Her forms and hues and voices manifold, 
All find their own dominion there and fan 

Their kindred feelings. And the reign they hold 

Is of a wealth unmeasured and untold- 
And yet one footprint of a by-gone age, 

One page of human history unrolled, 
Is more to rouse emotion, or assuage, 
Than all the assembled charms of Nature's heritage. 

XLIIL 
And then the native language of that book. 

Now taught to speak in every human tongue, 
Upon whose lessons he had learned to look 

As from the councils of the Highest sprung, 

Around his heart its inspiration flung, 
That speech before whose venerable eld 

Rome was of yesterday and Greece was young, 
And yet the force within whose bosom held, 
Is still unmarred by time, its mastery undispelled. 

XLIV. 
The rosy light, which half-reveals, half-veils 

The graceful luxury of orient climes, 
That magic of romance, which even tales 

Of wild untruth, and arbitrary crimes 

Into the heaven of Poetry sublimes, 
Allured his toils, where novel regions teem^ 

With thoughts unfixed by places, or by times, 
Which floating in a mist of fancy seem 
Like forms of cloudland bo.n, and wilful as a dream. 

4 ■ 



74 



ALIVVJV. 

XLV. 
And thus from land to land, day after day, 

Enthusiasm rushed with joyous bound. 
Not that his knowledge yet had seen the way 

To that strange mystery, most to astound, 

That all the loftiest, truest, most profound 
Philosophy that ever man conceived 

Is with the language which he speaks invvound, 
That all his mind or prowess has achieved. 
All he has loved, or hated, questioned or believed, 

XLVI. 
All he has been, as light upon the page 

By photographic skill prepared, records 
Itself in living speech from age to age : 

Alwyn ransacked the gallery of words 

For the more finite pictures it affords 
Of fair conceptions drawn by greatest men. 

And sooner than expected were those lords 
Of languages subjected to his ken. 
Few from all time the master-pieces of the pen. 

XLVIL 
Meanwhile had Springs and Autumns come and fled, 

And youth had been by riper age replaced. 
His native literature so long unread, 

Which largely earlier studies had embraced, 

Was less from memory than esteem effaced. 
But when he bade a truce to that long war 

In foreign fields, and former walks retraced. 
It was with thoughts such as the traveler's are 
When home again he greets, returning from afar. 



ALIVVJV, ;5 

XLVIII. 
" All hail, again, my native English tongue, 

Thou comest on my ear so richly fraught 
With melodies from life's deep fountains sprung, 

And harmonies of feeling and of thought, 

I seem to hear the voice of her who taught 
My infant lips to shape themselves to thee. 

Of those who in youth's giddy passions wrought 
The work of love, of hate, of grief, of glee, 
Of beauty's holy rest, or rapt solemnity. 

XLIX. 
Each word and accent has a tale to tell. 

Like early friends met under foreign skies, 
And as I yield me passive to thy spell. 

Upon imagination's canvas rise 

Their forms — the good, the beautiful, the wise — = 
Who taught the aspiring soul its noblest aim. 

Nor absent his who labored to devise 
Temptation to its ruin, and whose name 
Still kindles up disgust, or anger's keener flame. 

L. 

Nor does my spirit its own past career 

Alone from thy resources thus repair. 
The thoughts of millions fill thine atmosphere, 

As warm and genial sunlight fills the air — ■ 

Thine atmosphere in which the odors rare 
Are poetry, and science is the gale, 

And he who therein lives, though it may bear 
At times miasma's transitory bale. 
Knowledge and beauty must, as daily breath, inhale. 



76 ALJVVN. 

LI. 

Thou humblest thyself to every care, 

The lowliest task to human labor known. 

And in assuaging revelation where 

Languish the poor, disease's victims groan. 
Or conscience-stricken wretches would atone 

For bitter guilt by self-condemning tale, 

Hast thou the gates of utterance open thrown. 

And where thy deep heart-searching meanings fail, 

Where fail they ever must, what other can avail ? 

LII. 
But when a Hamlet's or Othello's woe 

The pangs sublime of pandemonian king. 
Immortal triumph o'er immortal foe, 

Or the glad theme which ransomed spirits sing. 

Demand the service of a bolder string, 
As little do thy harmonies refuse. 

Nay, rising buoyant as an angel's wing, 
Where thy high argument its path pursues. 
Thou soarest beyond the flight of Greek or Roman muse. 

LIII. 
What words like thine supply the fluent tongue 

With instruments of winning eloquence. 
Which, scattering to the winds the arts of wrong. 

And sifting equally from the pretense 

Of anarch and of despot honest sense. 
Can charm into conviction, and inspire 

That pure delight words can alone dispense. 
When to high meaning chimes their lofty choir, 
And Truth from Beauty draws new cogency and fire. 



ALWYN. 77 

LIV. 
Such was the sceptre by thy Wilberforce, 

Thy Burke, thy Murray, and thy Canning swayed, 
Till tyrants, yielding, smiled on Freedom's course, 

And legal rapine in his rage was stayed. 

And yet more glorious thy achievements made 
In nations kindled to the heavenly call 

By Whitefield's seraph tongue, and faith arrayed 
In science and in eloquence, from all 
The intellectual wealth of Chalmers and of Hall 

LV. 
And yet they say there's harshness in thy tone. — 

It may beseem the vain who boast their lore 
In other tongues, though smatterers in their own, 

To vaunt the value of their foreign store, 

And sneer at the capacious chords which pour 
Alike the solemn organ notes that swell 

The song of Paradise, the Lays of Moore,- 

The Doric strains of Burns, and those that dwell 

With Cowper, Coleridge, Scott, and Wordsv/orth's Druid 

shell, 

LVI. 

Which from the warblings of unhappy Clare, 

And the sweet minor of a Tannahill, 
To fiercest wailings of sublime despair, 

Which to the sweeping touch of Byron thrill 

The bosom which they subjugate and fill 
With all a Titan's suffering, command 

The diapason of the heart and will ; 
But elsewhere seeketh not the master's hand 
For keys to speak the true, the lovely, or the grand. 



78 



ALIVVN. 

LVII. 
Interpreter of free and ardent souls, 

Wise in thy strength, unshackled by the fear 
Of censorship, whose living thunder rolls 

Majestically truthful and severe, 

The foes of liberty to blast and sear — 
The flaming sword of Chatham, Fox, and Brougham, 

Nor less of him whose kindling words could rear 
The standard of the free, dispel their gloom, 
Could bid a nation live and men their rights assume. 

LVIII. 

Full true, thou hast thy discords, sharp and loud 
(And so hath Heaven), against the hour of need. 

On whomsoever bursts thy thunder-cloud 
Has found thy wrath no opera chant indeed. 
Nor set to measures of the " melting reed." 

For every passion of the" human breast, 

All trains of thought, however they proceed. 

And every curious topic of inquest. 

Thou hast a fitting garb and armor of the best. 

LIX. 
Grant me to know the treasures of thy reign. 

To wield at will the wealth which they afford, 
For every whim, conviction, joy, and pain. 

Promptly to grasp thy well-befitting word ; 

With thee to launch into the far explored 
Yet boundless regions of the human soul, 

I shall not envy Polyglotts their hoard, 
Though fair the dormant pile. The full control 
Of current life like thine transcends the boasted whole 



CANTO FOURTH 



ANALYSIS. 



Canto IV. — Philosophy, its elevated place in human knowledge — 
Founders of true philosophy, the world's indebtedness to them 
— Early feelings after truth — Ambitious speculation a feature 
of crude philosophy — The Ionian school, the Eleatic, Italic — 
Socrates — Necessity of method — Its various aims — Why the 
knowledge of truth is of vital importance towards making the 
best of human nature — Man himse/f the central point of all 
true philosophy — The self essentially the unseen element of 
man's being — A present s^"// in relation to ail other human 
selves — Its relations to God — Views of God, ^is duration — 
Bewildering questions — A mathematical philosophy — The 
transcendental — The tempest of controversy — A better philos- 
ophy — The lesson of Socrates to be forever remembered — 
Faith in nature — Gains from study of philosophy. 



CANTO FOURTH. 



I. 

" Divine Philosophy, to thee I bow, 

And pay the reverence to thy labors due, 

Co-agent of the written Word- For thou 
Art revelation from Jehovah too, 
Made to the patient student of the true. 

As that unfolds the plans of heavenly grace 
The great Creator's image to renew, 

So led by thee, the spirit learns to trace 

The way where wisdom leads our widely erring race. 

II. 
Though second to the Word, yea humbler far 

Than inspiration of the poet seer. 
And silent often where enquiries are 

Of highest import, and the hopes most dear, 

Transcending all the rest vouchsafed us here. 
As, like the clouds of fertilizing rain, 

Thy fruits spring where thou ceasest to appear, 
So slanderers scout thee, while they reap the gain 
Which at thy bounteous hand alone they can obtain. 
4* (8 1) 



82 ALIVVN. 

III. 
How poor the good this mortal life could bring 

From all its dormant stores, without thy aid ? 
And feeble were the flight of fancy's wing, 

If not upon thy steady pinion stayed. 

So deep, so widely do thy works pervade 
The social frame, that they who scarcely know 

The meaning of thy name, and never made 
Confession of the mental debt they owe, 
Live by thy truths proclaimed thousands of years ago. 

IV. 

What gave their glory to the great of old ? 

What made the Attic Greek and Roman great ? 
Were not the Spartan and the Samnite bold 

In equal warfare ? Whence their humbler fate ? 

Philosophy debarred their ruder state, 
They failed in purpose large, digested, clear. 

In judgment, when to hasten, when to wait, 
Or to subdue to any bond save fear, 
All that their valiant hosts vanquished with sword and 
spear 

V. 
Shortsighted counsels lost ; and prosperous war 

Was only glorious bloodshed, and conferred 
No other gain than rebel subjects are. 

Conquests were but a gangrene — only stirred 

A deadlier fire of vengeance, and deterred 
The voluntary homage of the free. 

Far otherwise the nobler states, which heard 
And reverenced the counsels given by thee. 
Built up a rule of which the world is proud to be. 



ALIVVN. 83 

VI. 

Each conquest was a fortress. The subdued 

By force of arms, soon gloried in the fame 
Of masters who bestowed substantial good, 

While lending all the splendor of their name. 

And allies with a free submission came, 
A barbarous independence well to pay 

For civil form and life, until the same 
Spirit pervaded all beneath their sway. 
And back upon its source came each reflected ray. 

VII. 

And where had b^en the boast of later times 
But for the legacy of old bequeathed, — 

The freedom of these occidental climes, 

Arts of the south, which when the sword is sheathed, 
Still blossom 'neath the genial fragrance breathed 

From ancient genius ; or the learned brow 
Still with the laurel of Apollo wreathed, 

The legal codes to which the nations bow, 

And debts of social forms, which never debts avow ? 

VIII. 
And what had been their legacy to leave. 

But for their students of the true and fair? 
Such as the tribes of Africa receive 

From ancient times had fallen to our share. 

Sweep from the world all that the Muses bare. 
All that the sage, and poet-sage proclaimed, 

The Hebrew schools, the songs that echoed there, 
Those holiest words by human language framed,— 
The moral lays which first the^Grecian mind enflamed, 



84 ALIVVJV. 

IX. 

The labors, with their aye perennial fruit, 
. Of the profoundly, rightly thinking few. 
Of Solon, of Pythagoras — the root 

Whence many a stem of truth luxuriant grew, 

Of wisest, patient Socrates, the true 
Prometheus of our race, without his woes. 

And of the minds his lucid genius drew, 
Of Xenophon, of Plato, and of those 
In Elis and Cyrene, and Megara who rose, 

X. 

Of Aristotle, of Carneades, 

Of Zeno, of Panaetius, Cicero, 
Of Paul, who taught the Christian mind to seize 

That dialectic power the schools bestow, 

The sons of Greek and Roman song, who owe 
Their master-spell to truth and hope and trust, 

Which only from Philosophy can flow. 
With all their offspring, and this being must 
Sink to the humblest joys of animated dust. 

XI. 

Yet, in thy realms of science many a way 

Of devious but attractive error lies. 
Thousands have found thy fields only to stray, 

And ever seek, with misdirected eyes, 

Not Truth, but deadly Falsehood in disguise. 
And there are questions of the loftiest kind, 

To which thy voice can render scant replies. 
Thy lights are ever matched by shades behind. 
And he who loves thee must not to thy faults be blind. 



ALIVVN. 85 

XII. . 
In that which Alwyn most had yearned to knov/, 
• He still remained untaught. The skeptic's pen 
Had labored much, not fruitlessly, to show 

That ignorance must ever baulk the ken, 

As time the being of the sons of men, 
That life is but a dream, from which we ne'er 

Awake, but ever, ever dream in vain, 
Through mingled phantasms of joy and care, 
Till back to nothingness our weary way we fare. 

XIII. 
And in the ancient lessons which he chose, 

As primary, to open up his way, 
Questions of darkest mystery arose. 

And systems which pretended to display 
' Alike the growth of being and decay 
And birth, where man finds nothing to adore. 

Nothing to trust in, follow or obey. 
Philosophy's young wings the wildest soar 
Through realms inscrutable, with most ambitious lore. 

XIV. 
Ionian science boasted to declare 

How things arose, and out of what they grew— 
Of holiest water, fire, earth or air. 

As each Sophistes from his fancy drew. 

Italic wisdom held the guiding clew 
To the bewildering labyrinth of things 

In law, which harmonizing old and new. 
Out of confusion fairest order brings, 
Till in the joy of beauty, the glad cosmos rings. 



S6 ALWYN. 

XV. 
The Eleatic labored to enlist 

The toil of thought in being sole and pure — 
'The energy in which all things consist, 

Of which they are, and by which they endure, 

Which well to know is wholly to secure 
The knowledge of the all. Nor wiser they, 

In their own wisdom no less vainly sure, 
Who built the worlds by their well ordered play 
Of Atoms, leaving man to his own sovereign sway. 

XVI. 

" Hope not," the ancient sage Ephesian taught, 
" For aught beyond this ever-rolling sphere. 
Hopes of the perfect are but waste of thought, 

And all we know must dwell forever here. 

'Tis not progression which pervades the year, 
But revolution. And as cycles roll. 

The past must in the present reappear ; 
By whom directed, to what distant goal, 
'Tis vain to ask. A part embraces not the whole." 

XVII. 
Of Cyrenaics humbler the design 

For human life, to set its pleasures free. 
" The proudest temple is an empty shrine, 

Elysium but the tale of Poesy, 

For who has looked into Eternity, 
Or who has come from Pluto's gloomy hall, 

Or to discover the divine decree 
Has overleaped Heaven's adamantine wall .? 
Why doubt, or fear, or hope? Enjoy, and thou hast all." 



ALIVVN. 87 

XVIII. 
In vain the laboring spirit seeks repose 

Upon the artifice of such replies. 
Nor, though a purer life his creed bestows, 

Much less in vain the Cynic's hope to rise 

To all perfection of the good and wise 
Through subjugation of the outer sense. 

'Tis not enough thus to philosophize, 
However craftily, if one commence 
With fiction, for which all his craft fails of defence. " 

XIX. 
'Twere well to know of what all things were made ; 

'Twere well into the primal cause to see, 
To listen to the choral music played 

By chiming spheres in heavenly harmony, 

Were they within our reach, or could they be 
Attained by bold conjecture. But if no 

Amount of striving sets their secret free, 
Were it not better to come down below. 
And, with an humbler aim, make certain as we go ? 

XX. 

And there are higher interests than the stars 

And elemental matter. And a cause 
Identifying with itself effects debars 

All access to a scrutiny of laws. 

He first philosophized, who dared to pause 
Where theorists began their daring flight. 

To know himself, and whence his reason draws 
Its cogency to guide the life aright. 
So grew Socratic lore ; whence Plato's wider sight 



88 ALWYN. 

XXI. 

Of that immortal destiny, which men 
Instinctively for their own being claim. 
. And yet, alas, how oft the master's pen 

Becomes bewildered, and his reasons lame, 
Just at the point where needed most to frame 

The juncture of an argument, and where 
The soul demands instruction, is his aim , 

To entertain with Fancy's forms of air. 

The student sighed to see how much was lacking there. 

XXII. 

But while long musing o'er the tangled skein, 

A prior task loomed up before his view. 
How should he well discriminate between 

The right and wrong, the fanciful and true? 

What method should the laboring mind pursue 
To find the truth, and recognize it found ? 

What alchemy distils it ? What the clew, 
Which through the mazes of deception wound. 
Leads surely to that end ? " And wherefore am I bound 

XXIII. 
" By force of inward law the truth to know ? 

Yea, what is truth, and what is it to me ? 
May not my life harmoniously flow 

Conformable to all I hear and see. 

Being by nature all that I should be. 
And executing all that'mortal can, 

Spontaneously, as upward grows the tree ? 
Nature makes no mistakes. Then why should man, 
Placed so much higher on the wise Creator's plan } " 



ALIVVN. 89 

XXIV. 
Let this reply suffice. Why question more ? 
"-.Man is a ruler; and, like God, must rule 
By right of law divine; or must deplore 

Himself dethroned, debased — a broken tool, 

Void of significance his life, and full 
Of conscience-pangs. To regulate the laws 

Of thousand instincts needs a higher school 
Than instinct forms ; intelligence which draws 
The weight of valid rule from power's profoundest cause. 

XXV. 

" Hence, deep upon the human soul impressed 

Is the divine necessity to learn 
The laws whereby alone it is addressed 

To its life-task, and the command to earn. 

Through life-unfolding study long and stern, 
The poise of sovereignty, and sight whereby 

The self-directing spirit may discern 
The great exemplar of itself on high, 
That it may rule with Him, and His just laws apply." 

XXVI. 

How vast the care — the thinker's earliest woe — 
To stand amid the thousand things of earth, 

And feel that there is there what he must know, 
If he would fill the purpose of his birth. 
And yet possess no measure of their worth : 

To think, and think, and ever think in vain ; 
And when he looks for help, to find the dearth 

Of clear and settled knowledge among men 

Of what the spirit craves, or reason would attain. 



90 



ALWYN. 

XXVII. 
" What, must I soar to the divine decree, 

And take my method from the mind of God ? 
Infallible, most doubtless, would it be, 

Could science ever reach that lofty road. 

Or shall I stoop to the material clod, 
And gather up its tedious details, 

That some far distant age may find a broad 
Basis for truth, which nothing now avails. 
And others may succeed, where all my labor fails ? 

■ XXVIII.. 
*' Or were it not a better way to spin 

One's method from creations of the brain ; 
With some fair root of argument begin. 

And thence deducing others, make all plain ? 

Then need no toil be lavished out in vain, 
To harmonize, defend, and to unfold 

The mysteries of discord. Once constrain 
The universe into a human mold. 
And then its tale is one, consistent, easy told. 

XXIX. 

" Nay, that were only to impose a scheme 

Of cold deception on the inquiring soul. 
Jarring and inconsistent they may seem. 

But facts alone can guide me to my goal. 

Patient I must be : yea, and must control 
The. gift creative, and its daring pride. 

And whether through the parts I reach the whole, 
Or the divine idea is my guide. 
Into humility ambition must subside — 



ALM^VJV. pi 

XXX. 

" Humility, the destined gate for all 

Who in the spirit of true worship come 
Before the shrine of Truth, forever shall 

Forbid the haughty step. The lofty home 

Of science rises gorgeously, like some 
Majestic minster, spacious and aglow 

With architectural wealth from base to dome, 
But painful the approach, the portal low, 
And lowly stoop must they would o'er the threshold go. 

XXXI. 

" To know the truth is only from the Lord. 

And he who well his own conceit denies, 
Whether he listens to the written Word, 

Or. gathers patiently the mute replies 

Of nature, can alone secure the prize. 
But human fashions, prejudice and pride 

Envelop all with plausible disguise. 
And they who follow them will find supplied 
In the wide universe no central stay or guide." 

XXXII. 
Without a certain method to direct 

Investigation, and to fix its bound. 
Yea, far from any eye that could detect 

The travail of his soul, would Alwyn sound 

Depths within which all effort must be drowned. 
Scheme after scheme he followed but to leave. ■ 

And long he toiled, nor satisfaction found. 
As touching what for truth he must receive. 
And of himself and life, and God and heaven believe. 



92 



ALlVViV. 

XXXIII. 

For 'twas of the originating cause 

Of. things in heaven and earth he longed to know, 
How they were framed, and by what sovereign laws 

The various currents of their being flow ; 

By what strong energy the living grow, 
And why, when life o'er death has won the day, 

It should again surrender to the foe ; 
And how it ever can resume its sway 
Over the ground thus lost, and wake^the dormant clay. 

XXXIV. 
" Myself am centre of all things to me. 

All things are outward, only I within, 
The depths of thought, not what T hear and see, 

But what I am, and shall be, and have been. 

All thoughts must end here, where all thoughts begin. 
Yet, like a house of glass, from head to foot, 

My body lets that outward world in, 
While this myself sits chemist to transmute 
Into the gold of thought the insensate and the brute. . 

XXXV. 

" This body mine — strange organism, too — 

To outward and to inward both allied. 
Myself alike to suffer and to do, 

Yet not myself to reason or decide. 

But where between it and myself divide ? 
Myself ! I only change my point of view. 

And then myself is on the outer side : 
And I behold it, from a point as true, 
A minister whom I must to my use subdue. 



ALIVYN. 

XXXVI. 

" And yet this self, impalpable, unseen, 

Which flits from soul to body, and anon. 

Swifter than morning's night-dispelling sheen, 
Plants in the soul her citadel alone — 
Incorporate with either or with none, 

Is, after all, the grand reality. 

Whose laws are sciences. All that is known 

Is but the sum of her capacity. 

Of good the judge, yet source of all iniquity. 

XXXVII. 

" The unseen is the master, whose mute will 
The laboring limbs implicitly obey. 

And yet I feel there is a greater still, 
To whose invisible, mysterious sway 
I owe allegiance, and whom to gainsay 

Is to indite my own eternal woe. 

But to that greater One the only way 

Lies through my inner self, which well to know 

Embraces all that man finds noblest here below. 

XXXVIII. 
' In man's own being is involved the mystery 

Of all existence in things low and high. 
Philosophies, all politics, all history 

In embryo in every bosom lie. 

While mankind lives its past can never die. 
Its continuity no bar divides. 

No age so ancient but its heir am I ; 
Nay, one with it, and in me it abides. 
One life of man rolls on its long successive tides. 



93 



94 



ALIVVN. 

XXXTX. 
" All profitless were he whose life should fail 

To use the present while its moments last ; 
But that which lifts him highest on the scale 

Of being is his knowledge of the past — 

Capacity to apprehend the vast 
Eternal purposes in life that lie, 

But over which the veil of night is cast, 
Save where God grants to patient learner's eye 
The backward streaming rays of glory passing by. 

XL. 

" From inner life all higher life I learn. 

Man is the only way to God for man, 

For through himself alone can man discern 

. Freedom divine, a ruler and a plan. 

The infinite he may not — cannot scan, 

Nor how the everlasting cycles run. 

But in his nature sees the Holy One 

More than the dew-drop images the sun. 

And when God stooped to save, through man the work 

was done." 

XLI. 

Yet on no other ground did Alwyn's guides 

So miserably mock his studious care. 
" God is the force which in all things resides, 

Which germinates in earth and breathes in air." 
" God," said another, " was the when and where 
Development commenced its round of laws." 
" God is the all, to make, destroy, repair, 
Himself the mass, the change, effect and cause," 
Or " God is man enlarged, as human fancy draws." 



ALIVVA^. 95 

XLIL 
" Duration is but one — an endless round 
' Without beginning. So the cause must be 
Of all existence. Wheresoever found 

Beginning is not that of Deity. 
. Boundless is space and boundless too is He 
Whose purposes to all its realm extend. 

But space, existence, and eternity 
I cannot doubt, nor can I comprehend. 
So God, however known, all thinking must transcend. 

XUll. 

" But if, as some proclaim, there is no God, 
Then that there is a God why did mankind 

Ever begin to think ? Were thought a clod, 
Or did brute matter do the work of mind. 
Then why has ever thinking dust resigned 

The credit of its thinking ? Why begin 
And occupy, alone and uncombined, 

All powers of reason, feeling, sense of sin. 

Then think some other life for these to dwell within ? 

XIJV. 

*' Impossible to think an endless line 

Of things which in themselves have each an end ; 
Or that existence, of whate'er design, 

Designed itself. Nor can I comprehend 

How nought made something, or could ever tend 
To anything ; nor better can conceive 

How God does from eternity descend. 
But in Him can implicitly believe, 
And without Him can nought as rational receive." 



g6 ALWYN. 

XLV. 

'Tis little truly that of God we know ; 

How little of His works which know Him not I 
One ray among a thousand serves to throw, 

Like sunlight through the leaves, a brilliant dot, 

All else is darkness ; and the bounds of thought 
To be extended slowly and with pain. 

Yea, but the glory of our human lot 
It is, however scanty, to retain 
Some power of seeing God, exerted not in vain. 

XLVI. 
As lonely orphan thrown upon the town, 

Without a friend to warn or to defend. 
By many a darkling passage may go down 

Before he learns that whereby to ascend, 

Unknown the foes with whom he must contend ; 
So Alwyn wandered in the world of thought. 

Toiling for aims which human powers transcend, 
Misled by errors speciously taught. 
Or seeking truth, where truth is ever vainly sought. 

XLVII. 

But rightly, wrongly, with or without pain, 
The labor, it was not devoid of joy, 

And in its issue, not always in vain ; 

Though oft in the procession passing by 
Before his fancy, men with earnest eye 

Darkened as they went on, and sadder grew. 
Some sank into the earth ; some chose to lie 

Gazing on clouds. And some withheld their view 

From ail except the lines which their own pencils drew. 



ALIVVJV. 



97 



XLVIII. 
It was a daring scheme, and well designed, 

To sum up human knowledge as a whole 
In propositions brief and well- defined, 

And thus decide what boundaries control 

The labors and affections of the soul. 
And men accepted it, and gravely deemed 

That thought thereby had reached its utmost goal. 
The stream they measured ; that from which it streamed, 
Eluding measurement, to them as nothing seemed. 

XLIX. 

Yet they believed that they had fathomed all 

The depths of human nature, and defined, 
Down to the last that ever could befall 

One of their race, the mysteries of mind. 

And great philosophers at ease reclined 
Upon their laurels, and serenely smiled 

If any one but hinted that behind 
Some gleaning of the harvest, straggling wild, 
Might still be found unreaped, ungarnered and unpiled. 

L. 

Nay, all was done, the garner filled and barred. 

Of what the reason could not and it could 
The depths had been laid bare, even to the hard 

And earthen floor on which all thinking stood. 

They looked on all their work, and deemed it good. . 
And what remained ? The heights of heaven to scale, 

And measure God with the same puny rood. 
Instruct Him where His strength can best avail, 
And where His mighty arm is ever doomed to fail. 
5 



98 ALWYJ^. 

LI. 
Their work seemed gospel, sober truth and sound, 

Higher than Revelation to their age. 
In it the standard of all truth they found, 

In it the touchstone of the sacred page. 

A futile war did pious churchmen wage 
To save the Word, while siding with its foe, 

And yielding all his postulates, engage 
His argument too late to overthrow. 
As if from upas-seed the wholesome date could grow. 

LII, 
The reign of Reason, emptily so-called, 

Was but the rage of folly and insane 
Ambition. The great toiling world, appalled, 

Shrunk back upon her steps, as if again 

To seek a refuge in the old and vain 
Beliefs abandoned long. A stronger foe 

Assailed the priests of Reason and their train, 
When first from Konigsberg came down the blow 
Which broke their idol's shrine, and laid his glories low. 

LIII. 
Fiercely and high the indignant shout arose, 

A heretic had dared, profane and bold, 
The weakness of their wisdom to expose? 

And open richest mines of virgin gold 

Beneath the hard foundations of the old 
And boasted treasure-house. But time went on. 

And onward still the revolution rolled. 
Kindling the brave, and the less brave anon. 
Till they who shrunk from truth by fashion's plea were 
won. 



ALIVVN, ■ gg 

LIV. 

But vast as was the bullion of that mine, 

Far from the use of human life it lay. 
The hand of Fichte stamped it into coin, 

And sent it forward in the light of day, 

On its ennobling and enriching way ; 
Set free the thinking soul and gave it range, 

The objective universe bound to its sway, 
And filled it with a mastery glad and strange. 
For its own proper ends, o'er every force and change. 

LV. 

It was a glorious freedom from the bonds 

Which souls so long had been condemned to wear ; 
That true enlargement to which joy responds, 

A lofty mount of varied prospects, where 

Exhilaration panted on the air, 
And a new life infused the thrilling veins. 

Grant it a dream, 'twas one divinely fair. 
And opening supernatural domains 
In heaven and earth, in seas and hills and plains. 

LVT. 

The old philosophy was tried and doomed. 

The inherent force of mind installed anew. 
Imagination had her right resumed, 

And feeling dawned once more into a true 

Integral power. Disciples not a few 
Followed his steps with scarce inferior sway. 

Broad was the cloud-land which young Schelling drew, 
G^and in its masses undefined and grey. 
Unfolding life in death, and nurture in decay. 



100 ALWVJV. 

LVII, 
Hegel, with intuition strong and keen, 

Pierced to the core of things, and grasped their mold, 
Presumed by the unseen to judge the^seen. 

And all its contents to describe and hold ; 

The master-spirit most complete and bold, 
Who framed for thoughtful Germany the new 

Philosophy, which taking in the old, 
And harmonizing all the structure, drew * 

That confidence which should be granted to the true. 

LVIII. 
It moved a tempest o'er the world of thought, 

From the deep heart of Germany, in France 
And England with contending currents fought, 

And many a stubborn rock of circumstance. 

Which multitudes beheld with timid glance ; 
And fields of earing grain and rustling corn 

Were prostrate laid before its dread advance. 
And clouds of. dust upon its wings were borne. 
Yet health was in its train, and clearer shone the morn. 

LIX. 
And when it passed, the dust fell back to earth, 

The angry thunders muttered to repose. 
The prostrate maize received another birth. 

And in the strength of richer life arose. 

And breaking clouds did fairer heavens disclose. 
The new philosophy, behind her blame. 

Carried a truth to vanquish shallower foes. 
Perhaps she fully earned her evil fame ; 
But, through the Father's love, good of that evil came. 



AL WYN. lOI 

LX. 

Yet good all other than what men designed, 

And all upon another level done, 
More varied powers, and wider range of mind, 

And ground for faith and hope were nobly won. 

But of the structure thus so well begun, 
The crowning members seemed of vapor made, 

Flitting as mists beneath the morning sun. 
New masters still new world-plans displayed, 
Alike illusive all, and doomed alike to fade. 

LXI. 
The keynote of the universe, which holds 

All its deep harmonies in true accord — 
The master-plan, which in its grasp enfolds 

Matter and law, infinity, the Word, 

With all its branching lines of povfer explored, 
To grasp in measurements of human thought. 

Was the vast height to which the teacher soared. 
What wonder if aspiring Reason wrought 
Sometimes in vain, and back deceitful trophies brought.? 

LXII. 

Men, who could think the Cosmos thus revealed, 

Squandered what seemed exhaustless wealth away. 
That v/ealth a soberer purpose yet shall wield, 

Which spendthrift Fancy shall not lead astray. 

A new philosophy shall yet array 
All truths the Transcendentalist can boast, 

With all that hold their place from earlier day, 
In harmony, one vast organic host 
Of lessons old and new, which mankind value most. 



I02 ALIVVN. 

LXIII. 

Thank God for all the health was in the storm, 

And thanks to God the storm is passed and gone. 
O'er what it did to waste and to deform 

'Twere profitless to grumble or bemoan. 

Better it were did blessings come alone, 
But if with war in all its dread array. 

Still thanks to him by whom the good is done ,• 
Nor thanks the less, if on the triumph day 
The ranks were broken up, the weapons cast away. 

LXIV. 
But is this science — feeling in the dark, 

Each for himself, the best that he can find, 
Without a common principle or mark. 

The sheaves of all the harvest field to bind. 

Thus every workman after his own mind 
Building his castle in the earth or air, 

Out of the mass to which he has consigned 
Some earlier structure no less proudly fair ? 
Oh, speculation, what your settled truth, and where ? 

LXV. 

There is philosophy which smooths the path 
To knowledge — lucid thinking of the wise — 

There is philosophy, a rod of wrath. 
In whose corrupt but specious disguise 
The truth evaporates, and virtue dies. 

There is philosophy, a verbal clothing 

Of shallow thought, which at the surface lies, 

And wastes its thin vitality in frothing— 

Nonsense philosophy, which leads, at best, to nothing. 



ALIVVN, 103 

LXVI. 

How poorly learned the lesson— the rich dower, 
Great son of Sophroniscus, left by thee— 

That the best power of schemmg is not power 
Of knowing, and however fair may be 
The system reared by proud Philosophy 

Beyond the limits of what man can know, 
'Tis but a fabric" framed of phantasy. 

Nor owns it aught of all the glittering show 

Which was not carried up from soberer realms below. 

LXVII. 

Unwavering faith in Nature, fullest trust 

In common things, their kindred and their force. 

In the pure truth of air, and light, and dust, 
Must be the clew wherewith to thrid our course 
Through mysteries of being. Sole resource 

For erring man is to accept the hand 
Of the great Author of the universe. 

His only are the lessons to command 

Conviction of all minds which truly understand. 

LXVIII. 

For that within us is not merely ours 

Whereby we know, distinguish and combme. 

From all eternity those glorious powers 
Have energized the same in the divme 
Nature, as now, with feebler force, in mine. _ 

Down through duration have they urged their flight. 
Filling the universe with their design. 

And every work of God, unveiled to sight 

Fits into human thought, as native, true, and right. 



I04 ALIVYN, 

LXIX. 

Well-ordered thinking seeing clearly through 

The changing mass and outward forms of things, 

Taking the everlasting from the new, 

The growths of being from their vital springs. 
To deathless principles its labor brings ; 

And these builds into system by the law 
Of mental nature's soundest reasonings. 

So apprehend we God, with solemn awe, 
• And thence, for human life, familiar lessons draw. 

LXX. 

The clearest thinkers, and the most profound. 

Though far apart in time and place they be. 
Think most alike. And on their wisest ground 

With them the soberer multitude agree. 

Thus ever with the great Hellenic three 
Must all partake who think complete and true— 

With the Lyceum or Academy, 
Or him from whose pelucid springs they drew. 
Thus, in the best, the old still animates the new. 

« 

LXXI. 
And what did Alwyn of his labor gain, 

His eager converse with the wise of old, 
That lofty counsel, which so often ta'en 

Night after night he would return to hold } 

Gain of an intellectual wealth untold, 
Of nobler worth to the immortal spirit 

Than all the veins of Californian gold — 
Treasures which perish not, which they inherit, 
Who claim not on the right of geniture, but merit. 



ALIVVN. X05 

LXXII. 

Wide vision of the fair, material earth, 

Perceptions of a new and varied kind, 
Which, though of outward objects, have their birth 

In unseen intercourse of mind with mind, 

Conceptions of the heavenly spark enshrined 
In human flesh, and in its types of things. 

Which toil untutored dare not hope to find, 
With feeling's tenderest glow and deepest springs, 
And Reason's firmest tread, and Fancy's lightest wings. 

LXXIII. 

Rich mines of thought, yielding for daily use. 
The current coin of virtues, lovely, pure, 

The clue of principle for the abstruse, 
And lenses to enlighten the obscure, 
Far-reaching laws, which ever must endure, 

The arbiters of pleasure and of pain, 

To guide the reason and the heart assure. 

While forms of beauty flitted round his brain, 

Like birds of Paradise, in long succeeding train. 

s* 



CANT'O FIFTH 



ANALYSIS 



Canto V. — Spiritual conflicts — Alwyn enters upon religious in- 
quiry through the gate of philosophy — Conflicting argumenta- 
tions — Inspiration — Controversial expositors — Is there any- 
thing to meet the spiritual cravings of the human mind better 
than the Bible ? — Alwyn in search of it betakes himself to the 
Deists— Early English Deists — Voltaire, what he effected — 
The doctrine of Rousseau — Hume, nothing — Suicide of Deism 
— Answers of the Bible to man's spiritual wants — Do heathen 
religions answer better ? Vedic, Persic, Chinese ? Their re- 
spective fruits reply — Alwyn's agitation of mind in these ques- 
tions darkens into confusion and dread — He seeks refuge in 
outward nature — Gains in spiritual warfare truthfully waged. 



CANTO FIFTH. 



I. 

Whoever would the heights of truth attain 
Must pass the ordeal of doubt and dread, 

Go out into the desert, and sustain 

Temptations of the Devil, and must tread 
Them under foot, crushing the serpent's head ; 

Of his Own heart the treasures must explore, 
And choose the guide by whom he will be led 

By path or trodden or untrod before, 

But once for all decide his aim to change no more. 

II. 

Such Sacred Writ declares the will of Heaven, 
Such fate the nations to their great assign. 

Such the example by the Saviour given. 
The ordeal of temptation his divine 
Being, though spotless, did not choose decline. 

Through such a horror of great darkness all, 
Predestined with a brighter ray to shine, 

Must pass to their vocation. 'Tis the pall 

Which covers, as with death, what life must not recall. 

(109) 



no ALWYN. 

III. 

Young life is but a prelude. Now begins 
The great dramatic action. Born again, 

Victorious over weaknesses or sins 

Are all the mightiest Vv^orkers among men — 
The prophet heroes, whose far-seeing ken 

Directs the march of ages. Moses knew 
The trials of the desert ere his pen 

The solemn wonders of Jehovah drew. 

And through the wastes of doubt the faith of Luther 
grew. 

IV. 

Men argue to convince, or to defend ; 

They reach their thoughts by more mysterious ways. 
Upon the silent steps of use depend 

Opinions which fill up their common days ; 

While intuition, with one fervid gaze, 
Transcends the realm where common laborers plod ; 

One deadly struggle with the Fiend displays 
The painful path by hero footsteps trod. 
Transforming to the heart one interview with God. 

V. 
But not through ecstacy of inner light, 

Not by a miracle, nor in a dream, 
Did Alwyn pass the boundaries of night 

To meet the fervor of the rising beam. 

Graver the toil, more distant the extreme 
Assigned his weary feet, by teachers led 

Who seemed the teachers of the truth to him. 
Friends whom he loved, and books which he had read 
With trust, across his way the dreary desert spread. 



ALIVVN. Ill 

VI. 

And thus, as every s^oul of man must stand, 
Alwyn before the gates of science stood, 

Left to himself, without a helping hand, 
Surrounded by a boundless solitude, 
As much alone, in choice of ill or good. 

As if the earth were desert. He had known 
In common cares what tender friendship could. 

But life's great trials must be undergone 

Where friends can never come, in the soul's depths alone. 

• ■ VII. 

'Twas not a conflict between work and play, 

Nor yet for him had indolence a charm ; 
But magic Art led in her witching sway 

A spirit quick to know, a bosom warm 

With genial love to every line and form 
And hue of beauty ; while to learning still, 

Whose varied work had done so much to arm 
Him for life's war, he clung with grateful will. 
And science could alone his highest wishes fill— 

VIII. 

His highest wishes to secure that truth 

Which man from Nature in herself can wring. 
Crude facts, in the habiliments uncouth, 

In which from hard experiment they spring — 

The crucible, the anvil, the harsh ring 
Of formulas of logic moved disgust 

To high-toned lore,^and Art, whose dainty wing 
Spurns the slow feet which labor with the dust ; 
Yet there he deemed must man repose his firmest trust. 



112 ALWVN. 

IX. 

'Twas not a matter which the will could solve 

By simple choice ; as erst, when Greece was yoiing, 
Did on the doubting Hercules devolve, 

But one which earnest thought and purpose strong, 

And self-examination practiced long, 
And large attainment pondered deep and pressed 

Into the very life, as right or wrong, 
Alone can settle to the soul's behest 
With judgment upon which the choice will ever rest. 

X. 

" But to that end, my soul herself must know, 
The native purpose of her life must see — 

What talents did the Almighty Lord bestow, 
What must the occupancy of them be, 
And how my wishes with my powers agree. 

Science must find her origin and guide 

As outward things reflect themselves in me. 

And thus shall Art be the most truly tried, 

And Learning's largest wealth most wisely be applied." 

XI. 

All true Philosophy must needs include 

Intrinsically a religious soul. 
Not, of necessity, as pure or good. 

But such as energizes in the whole 

Career, and gives in judgment at the goal. 
And yet how oft, alike in new and old, 

We feel a dark insidious control. 
With the connected system, fold on fold 
Enwrap us with its coils, all stealthily and cold. 



XII. 
And oft, as Alwyn read, and thought and read, 

The argument /Seemed sure, though into doubt 
Leading the heart, bewildering as it led. 

Something was wrong. But where, within, without. 

In him, or in creation round about ? 
Or in religion, as its tale was told ? 

He sought to plant himself with trust devout 
On Holy Scripture. But his faith, cajoled 
By some strange hidden charm, though grasping, failed 
to hold. 

XIII. 
And ever, as he felt for surer ground. 

He lost the sense of that whereon he trod ; 
While ever echoed from the dark profound 
" Is this indeed the very word of God ? 

Has that Almighty One, whose sovereign nod 
Rules orbs and orbits with resistless sway, 

Whose being through the universe abroad 
Pervades all space, as light pervades the day, 
Confided His decrees to creatures formed of clay ?" 

XIV, 
In vain he questions of the sacred leaves 

By aid of speculations which pretend 
That every heart the indwelling*God receives, 

And all His attributes in each descend. 

Not thus the mystery can be explained. 
For then the prophet only wrote his own. 

And who shall know when inspiration fanned 
The lyric light and fire, and when alone 
The bard's creative thought, the lyre's enrapturing tone ? 



114 ALWYN. 

XV. 

As in the dawn of Greece among the isles 

W+iich gem the bosom of the ^Egean sea, 
When there still reigned the beauty which beguiles 

The captive spirit into ecstacy, 

In moments of exalted reverie, 
The bard held converse with the world unseen, 

And glowing thoughts flashed into life which he . 
Had labored not with argument to glean 
From aught that previous life or outward things could 
mean, 

XVI. 
Emotions dawned unsought, and visions came 

In long array,, a world of living things, 
And language kindled after them like flame. 

While all unknown to him their several springs.* 

He from the god, who o'er his climate flings 
Its robe of beauty, deemed the treasure given, 

Claimed inspiration for imaginings 
For which his soul unconsciously had striven. 
And hence Apollo's harp, the Muse, the poet's heaven. 

XVII. 
And should the prophet's inspiration be 

Such as infused the Chian bard of old, 
Or from fair Paros.sent the elegy. 

Or taught the Lesbian melic art, or rolled 

The dithyramb in many a doubling fold, 
Though high the thought, melodious the line, 

No claim upon conviction can he hold 
Which he might not as well to Greece resign, 
And David's, -Pindar's harp are equally divine. 



ALWVN. 115 

XVIII. 
With such array of questions to be solved, 

The earnest seeker turned again, again, 
To sage expounders, and in thought revolved 

The divers viev/s and varying faith of men 

Who drew from the same book their creeds ; and when 
He saw their fierce and unforgiving zeal, 

In life, in death, with voice, with sword and pen, 
For doctrines of that book, dark doubts would steal 
Upon him of its claims to govern or reveal. 

XIX. 

Alas, that ministers of Truth should doom 

To doubt the spirit longing to believe, 
Or deepen question into sceptic gloom, 

For those who of their sceptic questions grieve. 

That disputants confuted may receive 
The shackles of a faith that binds the will. 

To Alwyn's heart the sense would ever cleave 
Of guilt in thinking false. Nor could he still 
That craving of the soul which truth alone can fill. 

XX. 

" If I must question Scripture, is there aught 

Of greater certainty ? Has any mind 
Seen deeper into Deity, and brought 

To light instructions of a surer kind ? 

To him would my convictions be resigned. 
I must presume, if learned men and wise 

Reject the Scripture, 'tis because they find 
A better wisdom than within it lies 
Elsewhere, \^ hich Reason neither questions nor denies; 



Il6 ALIVVJV. 

XXI. 

" Or questions less ; or otherwise they deem 
Some argument refuting it in mass 

As more than it entitled to esteem. 

'Twere wisest then to learn from him who has 
Possession of the truths which so surpass, 

And thereby settle, once for all, the best. 
Why suffer doubts my spirit to harass, 

If truth accessible has stood the test .'* 

I would it know forthwith, and there forever rest. 

XXII. 
" If mankind grows in wisdom as in age. 

As men, judged wisest of the race, maintain. 
In true development from stage to stage. 

Truth must become progressively more plain. 

And every step in thinking be a gain. 
Why for instruction toilsomely descend 

To the far depths of time, there to remain 
In earlier progress, when I may command 
The last results upon the level where I stand." 

XXIII. 

Man was not constituted to repose 
In unbelief. Essential to his peace 

Is faith. Investigation cannot close 
Until the struggling spirit win release 
From bonds of doubt, and vacillation cease. 

'Twill grasp at every semblance of the true. 
Perceiving trust in the untrue decrease, 

And Alwyn for support with ardor flew 

To seize the mask of truth the Deist held to view. 



ALPVVN. iiy 

XXIV. 
And did he not a purer light receive 

From reverential Herbert ? . Nothing more 
Than the departing rays of daylight leave— 

A twilight falling faint and fainter o'er 

Succeeding toilers in that helpless lore, — 
Twilight which darkened as the march went on. 

Proud Bolingbroke a showy garment wore, 
And much he boasted, lofty was the tone 
Of his supreme contempt on Holy Scripture thrown. 

XXV. 

But daring ignorance betrayed itself 

In ludicrous exposure to the eye 
Fresh from inspection of what on the shelf 

The noble lord had suffered long to lie. 

Reckless assertions, which but few would try 
To verify, among the few who could. 

On which the haughty peer seemed to rely. 
The careful scholar thoughtfully reviewed, 
And left the noble lord in no respectful mood. 

XXVI. 
But he had ceased to blend men with the cause 

Which they defend, and promptly did repair 
To other sources, where extreme applause 

Appeared to indicate more solid ware. 

From France the loud acclaim, vt^hich rent the air, 
Came in the tone of triumph. And it gave 

To every breeze thy boasted name, Voltaire. 
What though they crowned thee only for the grave, 
Thou won'st the highest meed thy aged heart could 
crave. 



Il8 ALIVVN. 

XXVII. 
With what a glow of joy did Alwyn bend 

Over the vohimes of that far-famed man. 
What might he not expect from him whose end 

Was proud as the long, brilliant race he ran — 

From him whom nations honored, and whom one 
Adored and followed whereso'er he led, 

Whose pen had matched the monarchies ; the plan 

Of whose campaigns of innovation bred 

Hope that the despot's rule, and falsehood's night had 

fled. 

XXVIII. 

He looked expectant to the boasted chief. 

The arguments that swayed a nation, must 
Surely avail to lend his mind relief. 

Alas, how feeble was that nation's trust. 

Not Sodom's apple crumbling into dust 
At touch of hungry pilgrim, not the reed 

As shelter from' the tempest's angry gust, 
So ill requite dependent in his need. 
In theory how fair; how terrible. in deed. 

XXIX. 

The pictured reign benign of Reason lay 
Before the admiring eye. A fairy land, 

Where all abuses should be swept away. 

And Virtue, by the breath of Freedom fanned, 
Should bloom in perfect beauty, 'neath the wand 

Of the magician rose ; yet distant far. 
And to be reached but by a bloody hand. 

The present still was unrelenting war. 

And his own Eden seemed to be the battle-car. 



ALJVVN. 119 

XXX. 

His power was to demolish, and his aim 

To scathe and blast pretension. And right well 

He occupied his talent- Sword and flame 
Devoured around him, and his vengeance fell 
Where Justice crushed did righteously rebel, 

And reason claimed redress. But in the fight, 
Led with such skill and valor, did he tell 

The anxious souls he could so well excite 

To hatred of the wrong, where they might find the right ? 

XXXI. 

Yet deists had their architect of schemes. 
And fair full oft were the designs he drew. 

And such the tints in which he robed his themes, 
That even they who felt constrained to view 
The whole chimerical, half wished it true. 

If ever truth from grace of style could grow. 
Conviction from expression's force accrue. 

The deist's faith prosperity should know 

From thy constructive art and eloquence, Rousseau. 

XXXII. 
Then what the better wisdom he arrayed 

Against the ancient Scripture ? " A divine 
Foreseeing power, which is to be obeyed. 

Of providence and purposes benign, 

A life to come, and punishment condign 
Of those who sin, and blessing for the jusL" 

Is that the better way — thus to decline 
A loving Saviour's grace, and blindly trust 
A cold device of state, as loyal subject must.? 



120 ALIVVN. 

XXXIII. 

And yet there was a hero in the man, 

Who, in a time of violence and lies, 
When Church and State alike imposed their ban 

On words that touched the hem of their disguise, 
^ When mankind's best, its truthful and its wise, 
Were crushed to earth by privileged insolence, 

Could strip Hypocrisy to common eyes, 
And lay her bare in all her rank offence, 
Unawed by vengeful Power's malignant recompense. 

XXXIV. 

Ah, gallant France, how deeply didst thou bleed 
That freedom from untruth to realize ! 

Shrunk not from mental toil nor daring deed. 
Nor vast expenditure of sacrifice. 
So thou might'st win the long-contested prize — 

So reason might the mastery attain. 
And rule in nature's true and simple guise 

Emancipate from despots. And thy gain? 

Writ upon Russian snows, and Leipsic's dreadful plain. 

XXXV. 

To students of the truth must not the voice 
Of even a nation be the sovereign guide, 

Nor give a bias to conclusive choice. 
It seems as if a matter must be tried 
With fairness where so many minds decide. 

But of the millions v/ho record the vote. 
How few have ever, for one hour, relied 

On Reason's light ? Some leading mind they quote, 

Tread blindly in his steps, and speak his words by rote. 



ALIVVA\ ■ J2I 

XXXVI. 

The multkude are creatures of their times. 

And times that stir the waters of the mind, 
Fertile alike in virtues a.nd in crimes, 

Though times when noblest men their places find, 

Oft bring to surface things of meanest kind, 
And often public weakness, in its need, 

Will blindly follow those, who also blind, 
Are foremost but as far as they exceed 
In wildness of design and recklessness of deed. 

XXXVII, 
A few strong thinkers, and the boldest first, 

Are always found a nation's intellect; 
They may be men accursed with the thirst 

Of power and fortune, or they may reject 

All selfish gain, the public to effect ; 
But on those few the mass will still depend, 

At least until their purposes are wrecked-— 
Success must aye the favorite defend — 
But if one leader sinks, another must ascend. 

XXXVIII. 
Thus, in the suffrages that crowned Voltaire, 

We read no real addition to the weight 
Of his opinions. For the voters were 

The populace, upon whose will that great 

And active spirit held the rod of fate. 
And not because their reasonings had proved 

The justness of his views ; but from their state 

Of natural dependence, as behooved 

Them 'neath his clearer thought, and stronger will they 

moved- 
6 



122 ' ALIVYN. 

XXXIX. 

But Alwyn sought for truth, not domination, 

Not exposition sole of the untrue 
Could satisfy his ardent expectation, 

Awakened by the crowds that leader drew. 

No pleasantries could turn aside his view. 
No satire the most witty, not the play 

Of liveliest fancy, ever yielding new 
Creations of amusement now could stay 
The earnest heart, which sought, through doubt, its 
darkling way. 

XL. 
One hope remained. Still might he not presume, 

With him who bore the philosophic name, 
The calm, the subtle, unimpassioned Hume, 

On whom reposed such men of learned fame, 

To find that best, so long his unseen aim ? 
Ah, now, 'twas disappointment's deeper deep. 

And ere to the concluding page he came, 
He felt despair upon his spirit creep- 
Defeat had led to rage, but sorrow chose to weep — 

XLI. 
To weep over the weakness of mankind, 

His own discomfiture and hopes decayed. 
The weakness of the wise, who could be blind 

To the poor sophisms upon them played 

By one whom their own theories had made 
Of more importance than his argument, 

Utterly void of any thing to aid 
A troubled spirit, earnestly intent 
To know that good in which this life were wisest spent. 



ALWYN. 123 

XLII. 
" Is this thy growth, Philosophy ? Have I 

Come from the teachings of a distant age, 
From Aristotle, Zeno, and' the high 

Instructions of the Academic sage, 

In fruitless speculation to engage 
With barren doubt ? And is it thus appears 

Thy champion most valiant war to wage ?" 
In sooth, it was abundant cause for tears 
That largely boasted gain of twice a thousand years. 

XLIII. 
And yet the world admired. The gift of style, 

Easy and polished, although cold and thin, 
A superficial age might well beguile ; 

But what did learned doctors find therein 

So hard to master, and so high to win. 
So difficult to answer, where in wrong ? 

'Tis easy, when with error all begin. 
For the consistent false to seem the strong. 
And over partial truth to boast the victory long. 

XLIV. 
'Twere profitless to further trace his way, 

Pursued in hopelessness and closed in pain, 
And followed but because no other lay 

Before him yet more hopeful or more plain. 

Among the honest theorists but vain. 
Who built for France the systems crude and wild 

Which only bore to ruin the mad train 
Of headlong revolutionists, self-styled 
Philosophers, until their words no more beguiled. 



124 ALIVVJV. 

XLV. 
For all alike evinced it their chief end 

To overthrow conviction that the Word 
Of God was in the Jewish books contained; 

While futile every effort to afford 

Instructions which more justly might accord 
With human faith, and honestly unmask 

The real replies to questions which the lord 
Of this creation cannot choose but ask. 
Their end was unbelief. And therein closed their task. 

XLVI. 
" Is unbelief the utmost, then, that man 

Is destined to arrive at here below ? 
And is he doomed to moral life, who can 

No principle of moral judgment know ? 

Does the Great Author of all justice throw 
His creatures forth into a moral night. 

And punish them for wandering? Does he show, 
To guide their way, no ray of heavenly light, 
Condemn them for the Vv^rong, and yet not teach the 
. right.?" 

XLVII. 
Yet one bold fact was ever clear. Of all 

The volumes out of which he counsel took, 
The only one to fully meet the call 

Of his inquiries was the Jewish book. 

By what authority it dared to look 
Into the heart and offer such replies. 

Plain, searching to the spirit's inmost nook, 
Must be determined in some other wise ; 
But answers, true or false, it surely did comprise. 



ALWVN. 125 

XLVIII. 

And then what mighty names, from age to age, 

The history of its victories adorn, 
The clear logician, the profoundest sage 
Of independent reason, who would scorn 
The sophist's empty trade, alike have worn 
Themselves by toil to make its lessons clear, — 
• But has not intellect the fetters borne 
Of every creed ? And does the task appear 
So easy to reject what youth has learned to fear ? 

XLIX. 
Did Solon's faith his native gods resign. 

Or cancel rites he could not reconcile ? 
Great minds have bent before Minerva's shrine, 

Adored the Ganges and the sacred Nile, 

Looked to Olympian peaks and Delo^ isle ; 
Nay, upon Indian and Egyptian plains. 

Prostrate to objects most obscene and vile, 
Have poured the earnest prayer. What then remains ? 
To grant the truth of all that intellect sustains ? 

L. 
" 'Tis little in the scale, when one would weigh 

The worth of an opinion, right or wrong, 
To have for either side the claim to lay 

That it has been defended by the strong. 

Not unto human power such rights belong. 
The greatest minds have furthest gone astray. 

And prejudices linger oft among 
The clearest views, and wield a secret sway 
Where freest will is strong, and would the least obey. 



126 ALIVVN. 

LI. 

" Reason alone must judge of true and false, 

Each soul of man its own decision make. 
And where it proves incompetent, nought else 

Can here below the labor undertake. 

Dreadful responsibility ! to stake 
One's everlasting welfare on the chance 

Of right conclusion, where so many wake 
Too late to error and its recompense. 
Yet here must knowledge end, here terminate advance. 

LII. 

" For grant the claim that the Supreme has given 

A revelation to the sons of men, 
Laden with wisdom and the grace of Heaven, 

On which they safely may rely. What then ? 

Which one is truly the inspired pen ? 
Which is of God ? The Hebrew prophet's lore ? 

Egyptian Thoth ? The sage whose prudent ken 
The crowded millions of Sinim adore ; 
Or who the Vedas sung, long lost in distant yore ? 

LIII. 
" Vain problem : * By their fruit shall they be known.' 
A scheme professed of human blessing can 
Evince a source divine by good alone 

Performed in those who follow out its plan. 
And what if critics, who the closest scan 
These many works, should find them all divine ? 

Must the Creator speak but once to man 
And all His favor to one tribe confine ? 
Must truths to falsehood turn whene'er they thus com- 
bine ? 



ALJVVN. 127 

LIV. 

" Such were strange alchemy." So Ahvyn saw, 
And soon abandoned the pursuit which no 

Investigation could avail to draw 

To fit conclusion. Whither should he go 
To find the Sibyl's leaves ; or who can show 

The books of Thoth ; or if one may ascend 
To source of the Avesta, or to know 

The fiaith in which the Vedic hymns were penned. 

What hope that toil should thus attain a happier end ? 

LV. 
" Poorly adapted to such themes as these 

Is the brief time to mortal works supplied. 
To scrutinize the Sanscrit and Chinese 

Is doubtless worth the scholar's honest pride ; 
But if the truth was ever thus descried, 
Its gain to human life must ill repay 

The toil of finding, if so long applied, 
It has not yielded other fruits to-day 
Than those which China's hordes and Hindu castes dis- 
play. 

LVI. 
"Is there a creed mankind can no^ believe ? 

Or is there aught beyond the range of doubt ? 
To smooth the way for what they would receive. 
Or rule the truthful, when offensive, out. 
There is no evidence men cannot scout. 
Nature full oft beholds her facts denied, 

Her hosts of demonstration put to rout. 
Nor has the love of God a word supplied 
On which the varying minds of men will not divide." 



128 ALWYN. 

LVII. 

Amid the agitation and unrest 

Awakened by the winds of unbelief, 
A gust of strange, wild joy would heave his breast — 

A turbid exultation of relief — 

A fierce vain-glory, bursting through the grief 
Of failure, while he seemed to comprehend 

Within the circle of his view the chief 
Defenders of the Word, and in the end 
Of proofs to see the want of all they would defend. 

LVIII. 

Like a breakwater to the stormy main. 

Would a strong argument sometimes restore 

His faith ; until along the billowy plain 

Rushed bolder lines of surge upon the shore, 
And with defiance, and insultant roar. 

Like charge of heroes hastening to the fray, 

Would headlong o'er his strongest bulwarks pour, 

Tossing in pride their feathery crests of spray. 

And scattering his defence, like pebbles, on their way. 

LIX. 
"And who shall tell," he bitterly inquires, 
" What are the certain seals of sacred writ? 
How shall I know the doctrine God inspires. 
And be prepared, as arbiter, to sit 
In judgment on its virtues to outfit 
My spirit for communion of the blest ? 

Is there a mark on language to transmit 
Its proof of birth in God ? Or does all rest 
On subtler evidence, whose truth eludes my quest ? 



ALWYN. 129 

LX, 

* And by whose judgment were it safe to mete 

The holy oracles of God withal ? 
Nay, were men's unanimity complete, 

Is there no doubt, while captive in the thrall 

Of sinful nature, that what men may call 
Most holy, with a view of truth so slim 

As not to fully comprehend the small, 
Will be received as holiest by Him 
Whose eye pervades the vast, nor to the small is dim ? 

LXI. 

*' Then, let it pass how men began to be, 

By whom created, on whatever wise. 
Behold the sum of all his history, 

He rules the creatures, and himself, and dies. 

And whosoever curiously pries 
Into what follows, or has gone before, 

Will hear from the far distance, as replies, 
The echoes of his questions. Nothing more 
Has answered human call, from that mysterious shore. 

LXII, 
" There is no proof that there is aught to prove, 
No certainty in evidence is shown. 
For proof needs proof ; and then it must behoove 
To find at last a place for umpire's throne." 
Alwyn dismissed his queries with a groan. 
To what result had boasted reason led } 

To this grand truth that nothing can be known. 
Earth was a blank, emotion's self was dead. 
And round his hopeless soul a mental midnight spread. 
6* 



I30 



ALJVVN. 

LXIII. 
Pale with repeated vigils by the lamp, 

And worn with cares, which sooner sap the flow 
Of life's warm current than the deck, the camp, 

Or any toil the animal can know — 

Those sceptic clouds, which round the spirit throw 
Their deepening shadows, until reason fails, 

Where doubts on doubts, mysteries on mysteries grow, 
To penetrate the uncertainty that veils 
The sources of all peace, the life of God assails. 

LXIV. 
Into a grove of old and solemn gloom 

He wandered heedless where his steps might wend, 
So might he but escape the fearful doom 

To which his reeling reason seemed to tend. 

And holy Nature, like a loving friend. 
Received him to her arm.s, and in his ear 

Poured those sad, sighing tones, which best descend 
Upon the troubled heart, to soothe and cheer. 
While leaving undisturbed the solitude so dear. 

LXV. 
Turning his eyes on high, he gazed awhile 

Along the spangled canopy of night, 
Till those fair orbs that ever seem to smile 

All tranquilly, untroubled by the blight 

Of human hopes, as if their distant light 
Were not created for a world of woe. 

Insensibly shed on his mental sight 
A portion of their own calm, steady glow 
Unchanging in itself, though clouds may roll below. 



ALlVViV. 131 

LXVI. 

That spiritual war is always gain 

Which manfully and truthfully is fought. 
Defeat full oft, in battles of the brain, 

Brings better spoil than ever victory brought. 

The haughty triumph of successful thought 
Parches with pride the surface of the soul. 

Till sowing and all culture come to nought, 
And sunshine without cloud enwraps the whole 
In poverty of drought no sunshine can console. 

LXVII. 

'Tis sometimes well that weeping clouds should spread 

Their gloomy pall across the beaming sky. 
'Tis sometimes well, with aching heart and head, 

That one should see his dearest prospects die. 

Full oft the failures which our hopes deny, 
Are forces of deep verity and right, 

A barren confidence to mortify. 
To drive the ploughshare, with relentless might, 
Through life, and bring its best fertility to light. 



CANTO SIXTH; 



ANALYSIS. 



Canto VI. — Philosophical studies, delightful as they are in them- 
selves, are shorn of their highest profit if pursued to the 
neglect of social duties — Alwyn turns from speculation to 
practical things — Importance of sympathy with men to the 
completeness of the individual— ^Certain doctrines proved by 
having always actuated mankind — Human nature — Alwyn re- 
volts from his experience in business life — Without a faith 
established in God, he loses faith in man — Nature has lost her 
former charms — A dream, sleep has her own world. 



CANTO SIXTH, 



I. 

For the rich flow of far-pervading thought, [hour, 

Which comes strong, deep and clear, at midnight's 

To patient thinking could the world be bought. 
Who would conclude the purchase — for a power 
O'er things of clay would sacrifice the dower 

Of the All-wise, which constitutes him lord 

Of unseen realms, from whose exhaustless store 

Enjoyments nobler than earth can afford 

More kindred to the soul are ever round him poured ? 

II. 

And yet there is a sadness in the bliss 
* Even of those rushing thoughts, as if behind 
There lay concealed a deeper source than this 

Of intellectual triumph, which the mind 

Dimly perceives far off, and undefined, 
And knows to be essential to her peace, 

But which she strives in vain to graSp and bind 
Unto herself, till humbled efforts cease, 
Despondency invades, and weary hopes decrease. 

035) 



136 ALPVVN. 

• 

III. 

For, with the multitude of thoughts that live 
And have their active being among men, 

O'er which the reason can avail to give 
The practical dominion of the pen, 
Dim forms of glorious truth will come, and then 

Depart, as shadows of the clouds flit by, 
'Neath Summer's sun, not to return again, 

But fire the soul with rapture while they fly, 

As harbingers of things to be revealed on high. 

IV. 

The mists of doubt, at times, will pass along, 

And shade the ideal prospect for a day. 
And he who seeks the truth may labor long, 

Warring with countless errors on his way. 

But persevering valor will repay 
With triumph in the end ; while the hard toil 

Expended in the war confers a sway 
O'er powers of thought all future foes to foil, 
For which alone 'twere well he spent the midnight oil. 

V. 
It is, indeed, a banquet of the soul, 

Thus to transcend our prison-house of mold, 
And as a portion merge in the great whole 

Of spiritual being, and to hold . 

Communion with the mighty minds of old, 
And with the dwellers of the vast unseen 

And sacred realms, where rest to man untold, 
The plans of God, as if one stood between 
Earth and the springs of all that shall be and has been. 



VI. 
But man has duties to perform on earth. 

And even the proudest efforts of his mind 
Must take their turn with things of meaner birth. 

Not wholly dust, nor all a soul, designed 

To fill a middle place, where both combined 
May share in equal tasks, he feels a call 

To active labors, helpful to mankind : 
Yet not beneath his heavenly source to fall. 
Hard is his task who seeks to know and practice all. 

VII. 
The middle watch of night had now passed by. 

When Alwyn turned him from the fruitless pain 
Of reconciling what must ever lie 

Unreconciled to him whose thoughts contain 
Less than the universe. " 'Tis also vain 
To trust to other eyes, when I may look 

On the same sources, and perhaps to gain 
A certainty whence these my teachers took 
Their most bewildering doubts," he said, and shut his 
book. 

VIII. 

" The natural is real ; or, if not so, 

As good as real to us, who ever lie 
Under necessity in all we do, 

Whatever we may- credit or deny. 

Whatever ends we seek or means employ, 
In every act and purpose, not insane. 

To deal with it as such. And they who try 
To treat it as unreal will try in vain. 
Self-contradicted still, with all their care and pain. 



138 ALIVVN. 

IX. 

" And if it is impossible to live 

Consistently with doubt, then doubt must be 
Unreasonable ; and they who choose to give 

Their confidence to Nature full and free, 

With the demands of reason best agree. 
Forces preceding reason guide our hands, 

And dictate reason's fundamental plea. 
And to submit to those constraining bands 
Are all alike constrained by reason's own demands." 

X. 

Eut then arose, what oft arose before 
In dim impression, now in clearest light, 

What to the moral being ever more 

Import than question of the true and right. 
Yet taking both within their range of sight, 

The solemn heights of Duty. " What am I, 
Amid these wonders of creative might, 

And what the part assigned me by the High 

And Holy One, who writes His will in earth and sky ? 

XI. 

" Mighty is fruf/i — the everlasting law 

Of God's own nature, and thereby the key 

To all the world of mysteries that draw 
Existence from His purpose — and to be 
Conformed to which is right ; but of the three 

Duty is ours ; for us must ever span 

The sum of highest knowledge. Well to see, 

Backward and forward and throughout, the plan 

Of one's own work, and do it, must be ever most to man. 



ALIVVN, 139 

'XII. 
Deep study and much reading had supplied 

Knowledge, though partial, of the highest things. 
That theoretic learning, to which pride 

Of intellect forever fondly clings, - 

Alwyn had quaffed at its profoundest springs. 
But true experience, though a path less smooth, 

Has much to teach that reading never brings. 
For to the warm imaginings of youth 
A transcendental haze enrobes the simplest truth. 

XIII. 
The agony of long-protracted doubt 

And toilsome study oftentimes restrain 
And chill the feelings. Yet if truth shines out 

They burst forth fresh, rejoicing in her train. 

But he who would direct from nature gain 
And read the science of the human heart, 

Shall often be compelled to suffer pain 
That will not lightly from his soul depart, 
Lasting as wisdom's ground, and as the price of Art. 

XIV. 
For he must feel, not merely sympathize, 

In all the common joys and pains of men. 
Nay, not their petty whims must he despise, 

Share in their follies and regrets, and then 

Study must still be wedded to his ken, 
The springs of action rightly to unfold. 

But he who trusts to the recluse's pen, 
Which can but aid, shall never see unrolled 
One tithe of the great truths in human nature told. 



140 ALWVN. 

XV. 
To Alwyn's mind 'twas observation solely 

Which now appeared as hopeful. "'Surely he 
Who looks on Wisdom's working and on folly, 

And treasures up whate'er the lesson be, 

Must the first springs of human action see, 
And learn the secrets of this wondrous frame, 

Where God is sovereign and where man is free. 
The cause of suffering and the source of blame, 
Life's various motives, and their ever common aim." 

XVI. 

Such were the hopes in whose deceitful light 
He now the outline of his course designed. 

Fields, as it seemed to him, unreaped, but white 
Unto the harvest, opened to his mind, 
Fruitful of expectations from mankind. 
. And the romance, which buoyant Fancy threw 
Over adventure yet untried, combined 

With all to lend attraction to the view. 

Which now before him lay, unlimited and new. 

XVII. 
" Have not the martyred multitudes that lie 

Along the pathway of two thousand years. 
Confirmed the creed for which they chose to die ? 

Or have they vainly shed their blood and tears. 

Endured privation, vanquished human fears. 
And triumphed over death ? Nay, let me found 

My faith upon the basis which appears 
Sustained by evidence so large and sound. 
Man knows no higher faith, and faith no higher ground." 



ALWYN. • 141 

XVIII. 
Thus pondering long the doctrines and the views 

Which crowded for admission on his sight, 
'Mong which he carefully declined to choose, 

Dreading the dubious contest for the right, 
.Yet turning each in many a varied light, 
A calmer, hopeful feeling soothed his breast. 

Shedding a ray across his mental night 
Which ceased not yet the landscape to invest. 
For rest was not obtained, but only hope of rest. 

XIX. 
But hope of rest was grateful. And it came 

Upon his heart as falls the evening dew 
On Summer's thirsty leaves, until the flame 

Of a returning noonday shall renew 

The scorching gaze which all its moisture drew. 
No longer now in intellectual pride. 

Seeking to win a self-determined view. 
He only seeks a creed that can provide 
For his o'erlabored mind, a bold, unwavering guide. 

XX. 

" Why earth was formed, and why the heavens outspread 
^ With all the wonders of unbounded space, 
Why glow those distant orbs, and wherefore sped 
By hand unseen along their mighty race } 
And what unchanging purposes embrace 
All their stupendous cydes in one whole. 
Binding unerringly each to his place — 
Ten thousand suns and systems to one pole, 
Round which as single orbs their many orbits roll, 



142 ALPVVN. 

XXL 
" No mind of man can know. Nor shall I waste 

My days and years in toil to ascertain 
The inscrutable. Each being has been placed 

Where circumstances of themselves explain 

The duties which the Maker chose to ordain. 
Enough for me thus much of His design 

To comprehend. All further quest restrain. 
Follow the dictates of this heart of thine, 
Formed by the heavenly v/ill, its voice must be divine. 

XXII. 

'' The most consoling creed must be the true, 
As most accordant to the inward voice. 

And for the human race, what all pursue 
Must be the highest object of its choice, 
In which its Author bids it to rejoice. 

Shall the Almighty raise His arm to make. 
And fail in any method He employs ? 

Whatever present aspect things may take, 

The works of God are good, and for His glory's sake." 

XXIII. 
And thus did Alwyn launch into the sea 
• Of worldly business eagerly to drown 
The craving of his inner life, and free 

Himself from questions which had settled down 

Upon his spirit a perpetual frown. 
Where all appeared successfully to fare 

In search of gold, of office, or renown. 
Might he not hope to find his modest share 
Of temporal success — relief from inward care ? 



ALIVVJV. 

XXIV. 
His early years of literary life, 

Though marked with earnest labor and success, 
Had never entered on the fiercer strife 

Which surges through the gates of business. 

A young enthusiasm fired him, less 
For topics which his rapid pen employed, 

Than intellectual earnings to possess, 
Which earth confers not. And, although enjoyed, 
The work had always in it something of a void. 

XXV. 
And still, as many see, he only saw 

The outward show, triumphant march of gain. 
Saw not the working of the eternal law. 

Which by its tense and ever-instant strain 

Hardens the heart and mollifies the brain- 
Saw not beneath the city's upper crust, 

What misery its inner depths contain, 
Knew not how far successful business must, 
In being true to self, be inhumanely just. 

XXVI. 
All things appeared in light of his new creed, 
Were estimated as they stood' that test. 
" Whether in speculation or in deed, 

What makes man happiest must be the best." 
Such seemed his haven now. And for the rest — 
His intellectual toils had proved but wrecks. 
" Men of the world," he said, " seem ever blest 
With buoyant hearts, which no such questions vex, 
And reach life's aim without a doctrine to perplex." 



143 



144 ALIVYN. 

XXVII. 
How many thus, from childhood to the grave, 

Expend their days in varying mistake, 
In trying from the ever passing wave 

Of temporal life the spirit's thirst to slake. 

The immaterial in us craves to make 
An immaterial and eternal gain. 

We proffer it the present ; and awake 
To wonder that it seems to crave in vain, 
Its voice misunderstood, with all our care and pain. 

XXVIII. 
Dreading to tread again the dismal coast 

Of rational despair, in which so late 
The chart and compass of his course were lost, 

He shuts out speculation and debate 

To meefplain business in its own estate. 
To fill its duties, and to bear its load, 

To gather facts of human life, and wait 
On human nature's practicable mode 
Of teaching truth, and then rest in the good bestowed. 

XXIX. 

Knowledge of human nature, worth to man 
The bravest strife by human spirit striven, 

Is open deemed to all, who only can 
Behold or listen, as the chance is given, 
To basest men by crawling motives driven. 

To know the being in God's image made, 

And filled with an immortal life from heaven, 

Must one go down where selfish aims degrade, 

And read the solemn lesson by the light of trade } 



ALIVVA\ 

XXX. 
Human nature, form of the ideal, 

The loftiest being by conception traced, 
Embodying in itself the living real 

Of all with which ideal life is graced, 

Image of God, though broken and defaced, 
Though stained with earth, polluted in the mire, 

Still; that which shall be finally replaced 
In holiness, and elevated higher 
In majesty divine than the angelic choir : 

XXXI. 
True human nature, to which men can add 

Nothing but more and better of the same, 
When thinking of the attributes of God : 

So vast in apprehension, high in aim, 

So sensitive to favor or to blame ; 
Whom holiness befits, and moral wrong 

Stains by its touch ; and whom it would defame 
To praise with highest praises that belong 
To any other one earth's habitants among ; 

XXXII. 

Yea, human nature, like all other things, 

Best known where in its best condition found, 

Best analyzed when at it purest springs, 
Ought to be studied upon holy ground. 
Where least the bias of false lights surround. 

So should we praise its being not the less 
That sins and errors do so much abound. 

Not it, but its defects do they express, 

For none can sin who are not made for holiness- 
7 



145 



146 ALWVJV. 

XXXIII. -/ 
But Alwyn, like the many, thought the gross 

Of human life, the wicked and the low, 
Especially denuded of the gloss 

Of artificial covering, must show 

The truth of human nature ; and to know 
That mystery, in all its breadth and force, 

He rushed with new-enkindled zeal to throw 
Himself into the channel of its course, 
And seek in human life inquiry's last resource. 

XXXIV. 
Alas ! in rush of business, day by day. 

In nights of care, the waste of all for gain, 
So often gathered but to melt away ; 

The selfishness, the narrowness, the drain 

Upon the poor, their labors and their pain, 
To feed rapacious purses ; and the round 

Of deepening crimes and vices, which retain 
Both high and low in wretchedness, he found 
All nobler aims of life and better feelings drowned, 

XXXV. 

And in their pleasures what a depth of woe, 

What hearts made desolate and souls destroyed ; 
What blooming hopes of early life laid low. 

And smiling homes o'erclouded, darkened, void ; 

A sacrifice that Moloch might have cloyed, 
Offered forever, that the pleasure sought 

By selfish men might daily be enjoyed. 
And selfishness itself was sold and bought. 
Yet ever in its gains came wretchedly to nought. 



ALIVVjV. 



H7 



XXXVI. 

And Alwyn wearied of that bickering life 
Whose fair externals had allured him most, 

Its grovelling, toiling, temporalizing strife 
For fleeting pleasures at a lasting cost, 
In which the care-vexed multitude was tossed. 

From conscience had he earned no respite. 
And his respect for human nature lost, 

And in that loss lost all. The fairest light 

Of hope and love and God all vanished from his sight. 

XXXVTI. 
Then while he wept in spirit for the dead. 

And saw the wicked prosper by their wrong, 
Amid the ruins of his hopes he said, 
" Alas, and if this wretched human throng 

Be the true lord to whom the zones belong, 
The native growth of atoms, then the right 

Is but a fiction ; are they not the strong 
Who always rule, in truth and love's despite ? 
In vain does Justice plead, v/hen unsustained by might." 

XXXVIII. 
Blackness of darkness on his spirit fell, 

Extinguishing all purpose, all desire. 
What had a chance-created world to tell ? 

What revelation could a heaven inspire 

The necessary birth of frost and fire ? 
But wherefore then so passionately pray 
" My God, my God," impelled by something higher 
Than all that life and argument can say ? 
Poor self-conflicting soul, where shall it find a stay ? 



140 



AL WYN. 

XXXIX. 

Nature had taught of nature— nothing more. 

Philosophy had led to darkest doubt. 
Knowledge of human nature only bore 

The fruit of disappointment. For without 

Sight of its loftier ends, the most devout 
Philanthropy could only turn to gall. 

Science alone seemed certain. But about 
Man's origin, his place, and purpose, all 
Was silent as the grave, and gloomy as its pall. 

XL. 

Men may be doubted, and the doubt a gain ; 

But without faith in man there can be none 
In God ; and they who trust not God remain 

As infidel to man. And he alone 

Who loves his brother man, already known, 
Can love the God unseen but by the blest. 

And faith and love alike have ever grown 
From the conviction, natively impressed, 
That all things, good 'and ill, are ordered for the best. 

XLI. 
But Alwyn's soul, embittered by the view 

Of life thus taken, earthy, cold, and sad, 
Although a timorous love clung to a few, 

Revolted from the race, in whom he had 

Found in the main, the selfish and the bad. 
But now necessity had firmly wound 

Her coils about him ; and the life he led, 
Though hated, with a spell like that around 
The gaming-table, still with chains of iron bound. 



ALJVVN, i^g 

XLII. 

In surging turmoil and the heat of crowds, 

The inner life withdraws herself from sight, 
Shrinks from unsympathizing gaze, and shrouds 

Her form in shades of artificial night. 

As in the smoke and fury -of the fight 
The ranks succeed or fail, they know not why, 

So, in the business war, where wrong with right, 
Where true and false in desperate conflict vie. 
Is not the place to pause with introverted eye. 

XLIII. 
By him alone, who stands apart and views 

The scene, where cares and passions seethe and boil, 
And with a living sympathy pursues 

The tide alike in flow and in recoil. 

Without submitting to their rude turmoil. 
Or yielding to their crimes, by him alone 

Who reads his own heart with a patient toil 
Is human nature deepest, largest known. 
'Tis from above the most impartial light is thrown, 

XLIV. 
Is there still healing in the lonely wild, 

Where man is but a visitor, and rare ? 
Its inspiration filled him when a child ; 

And shall its blessed agency repair 

The blight which social life has oft to bear ? 
The eager spirit half its light relumed 

At thought of days so lovely and so fair. 
But Nature had of late for him assumed 
Such moods as those to which he had himself been 
doomed. 



150 ALWVN. 

XLV. 
As, seen from Lauterbrunnen's watery vale, 

The sunset glories of the proud Jungfrau 
Dissolve by chilling changes ghastly pale, 

As dies the light along the mountam's brow ; 

So die the charms which earthly scenes endow, 
When of the rays of hopeful fancy shorn ; 

And Alwyn fruitless sought m nature now 
The fellowship she gave to life's bright morn, 
Saw but a pallid corpse — a painted scene outworn. 

XLVI. 
They who would climb the dazzling mountain's crown, 

Must often pass where avalanches lower, 
And from successive summits must go down, 

To climb again, full many a weary hour ; 

So the ascent of intellectual power 
And truth is oft appalling to the view. 

Gulfs yawn beneath, and precipices tower, 
Efforts seem lost 'twere fruitless to renew. 
And yet the path of toil and doubt may be the true. 

XLVII. 
But there was still another, stranger life. 

Lying away behind that conscious scene. 
When, all withdrawn from day's harassing strife. 

The soul's unconscious being woke serene. 

Again he rambled o'er the pastures green. 
Or lightly scaled the airy mountain wall. 

And he was once again, as he had been 
In happy boyhood, ignorant of all 
That thinking which had turned the fruit of thought to gall. 



ALWYN. 151 

XLVIII. 

Again the honest earth yielded to him 

The joys of earlier days. The laughing rill 

Played v/ith the grassy lawn along its brim. 
The shadowy forest slumbered on the hill, 
And silent herds did dreamy pastures fill. 

Again his limbs did the light winds invest 

Fresh from the gleaming sea. But all was still, 

And, in another light than sunshine drest. 

Breathed of a holier realm of purity and rest 

• XLIX. 
Then changed the scene, like a dissolving view. 

Earth disappeared. Distinctly, as if nigh, 
One sainted form before his vision grew. 

Well-known and dearly loved ; but far and high, 

On bended knee, in pure and crystal sky, 
Which slowly opened round her, and displayed 

Glories of light ineffable, which lie 
Where never shades of earthly day invade. 
And the angelic ranks round the white throne arrayed. 

L. 

And still that one beloved on bended knee 

All silent seemed. And silent all around 
The throne of God ; in awful silence He. 

Meanings were uttered, but gave forth no sound. 

Nearer ! O nearer ! But his lim.bs were bound. 
And then words seemed into his heart to pour, 

As having through no outward organ found 
Their way, and with deep tenderness implore, 
In tones his childhood knew, now heard on earth no more. 



152 ALWYN. 

LI. 
Of him they spake, his dangers still below, 

In doubts, temptations, weaknesses, and sin ; 
Pleaded the sad inheritance of woe, 

With which the purest of mankind begin, ' 

The grace, which e'en the guiltiest may win, 
And earnestly for him that grace besought. 

Alwyn heard no reply ; but felt within 
As if upon a beam of glory brought, 
A glow of blessedness, the light of holier thought. 

LII. 

Again the scene dissolved. And as he lay 

By the vast ocean's shore, a face drew near 
Out of the darkness, lighted by no ray 

But from itself. Clearer and yet more clear. 

Of heavenly beauty, holy and severe, 
Changing to tender, loving, did it seem. 

Till forth stood every feature — O how dear ! 
But the bliss perished in its own extreme. 
He woke, and pondered long the strange ecstatic dream. 

LIII. 
Within herself the human spirit lives 

A life all separate from what appears. 
Though to the world of men her toil she gives, 

'Tis when forgetting them and self she rears 

Her fairest works, weaves her own joys and fears, 
And calls around her with most potent sway 

The grand realities of higher spheres. 
Which with the self-forgetful soul delay ; 
But fleet at slightest touch of consciousness away. 



CANTO SEVENTH. 



ANALYSIS. 



Canto VII. — Alwyn, after all his studies, in a state of spiritual 
darkness, desolate, despondent — Pardoners of sin — He returns 
to his native land — The Minster church — The service — Dis- 
appointed, he strolls thoughtfully through the city — En- 
counters the friend of his youth in destitution — Recital of a 
lowly Christian's afflictions — They profoundly interest Alvv^yn's 
feelings — In the course of continuing to aid his friend, he is led 
to relieve suffering in others — Becomes acquainted with other 
persons similarly employed — Learns to hold them in esteem — • 
And to think of Jesus, in whose spirit they profess to act, in a 
new light — Weighs in his meditations the benevolence and self- 
sacrifice of Jesus — Through love to His person begins to feel 
the comfort of confidence in His truth — His meditations swell 
into a hymn to Christ — Epilogue. 



CANTO SEVENTH. 



I. 

V/hat is there great in all our mortal years, 
In all that can by human skill be known ? 

The far-off mighty dwindles as it nears, 
And earnest seekers after truth bemoan 

__ Their purpose baffled and their hopes o'erthrown. 

Ah ! how much labor and exhausting pain, 
What wear of soul, that never can be shown, 

Must often be endured to make the gain 

Of vital truth, which one bright moment might attain ! 

II. 

Why should so many of transcendent power 
In long unrest their anxious days expend, 

Inquiring ever till their latest hour, 
Only to be inquirers at the end — 
Such wealth of thinking to the grave descend, 

Without one step of progress on the whole ? . 
Must each new life upon itself depend 

And leave no help for a succeeding soul 

The better to attain the all-desired goal ? 

(155) - 



156 ALWYN, 

III. 
'Twas not that fortune had refused to crov/n 

Alwyn's industrial toil with competence, 
But all life's Spring and Summer now had flowii; 

And yet the good he sought at such expense 

Of peace, of human love and severance, 
Enlightened not his sad and lone abode. 

All other gains were heartless recompense ; 

Yea, all the best by learning's hand bestowed, 

While life-exhausting search had failed of peace with 

God. 

IV. 

Friendships it had not been his care to make. 

To lone pursuits his hermit youth he paid. 
x\nd if his lips the words of kindness spake, 

'Twas often that a happy temper made 

It pieasanter than rudeness to be said. 
While positive attainments satisfiedj 

While life was new and hope her plans arrayed, 
While daily study daily joy supplied 
He little recked what man or granted or denied. 

V. 
While fortune smiles and mental stores increase, 

The services of friendship may be brief. 
But ill can hermit self-sustain her peace 

With disappointment, failure, unbelief. 

'Tis true, her ear may virtuously be deaf 
To hollow phrase of smooth-tongued sons of cant ; 

But to the smile of kindliness, that chief 
Of all the gifts of time, 'twere false to vaunt 
A disregard or hate, or glory in its want. 



ALPFVJV. 157 

VI. 
By knowing had he hoped to reach the sure 

System of causes — the eternal bond 
Betwixt the work and Maker — the secure 

Step from creation into that beyond, 

Which should to his most solemn wish respond, 
And learn with clearness all the aim of prayer, 

And all a sure salvation, which his fond 
Devotion craved with ever anxious care. 
But every path had ended in " no thoroughfare." 

VII. 
Could not his soul the wealth of nature fill ? 

No charm was lacking in the earth or sky. 
And where he lived had Art, with curious skill, 

Long labored, not in vain, to multiply 

All that could bless the heart through ear and eye. 
And men and women, in their liquid tongue, 

Confessed their sins, and trusted the reply 
Which pardoned them. And wide, to old and young. 
To good and bad, the gates of heaven were open flung. 

VIII. 
"And wherefore not accept the easy grace, 

Which may be had without this toil of mind ? 
If some good priest's decision can efface 

The guilt Vv'ith which my spirit is combined. 

Why not let heart and conscience be resigned ? 
If there are men who will insist to bear 

Responsibility of such a kind, 
Why may I not on them devolve my care, 
And leave to them the robe it is their choice to wear.? 



158 ALIVVN. 

IX. 

But, ah ! the soul that sinneth it shall die. 

One drop of poison may dissolve forever 
My hold on life, and all its bonds untie ; 

So must one sin from holy being sever, 

To be rejoined by human effort never. 
The laws of nature are the thoughts of God, 

All changeless and unerring. Like a river 
They hasten to their goal. He bears the load 
Of sin who sins ; and he alone must stem the flood. 

X. 

And whosoever dares to pardon sin 

In others only aggravates his own. 
The guilty spirit must retain within 

Its discord with all else that God has done. 

And if aught for that discord can atone 
It must be something competent to change 

Creation's nature, to assume the throne 
Of monarchy divine, and rearrange 
The universe, and causes from effects estrange. " 

XI. 

As hunted stag, survivor in the chase, 

Seeks wearily the lair fiom which he rose ; 

So wearily did Alwyn now retrace 
His steps, to find at last a sad repose 
Where young success her charms did first disclose. 

Not dead to cares of science and of lore, 
A loftier care absorbed his life than those. 

And till its calls are met, none evermore 

Can to his heart a throb of quickening zeal restore. 



ALWYN. I^Q 

XII. 

To height sublime a stately fabric rose, 
Solemn, yet light, and in its grandeur fair, 

Where studious Art had labored to dispose 
Her ponderous masses with the subtlest care, 
That all might seem to rise and none to bear. 

In lightly springing arches, to the eye 
I^ike gossamer suspended in mid air, 

And lines and spires all pointing to the sky, 

As if to guide the soul to its true home on high. 

XIII. 
The giddiest mind the solemn portal awes, 

The worshiper, ere entering, bends low 
Upon its threshold stone in reverent pause, 
Till words of prayer in muttered accents flow 
And sprinklings symbolical bestow 
A sanctity consistent with the place. 

And then proceeds with motion grave and slow, 
With humbled aspect and a muffled pace. 
As if 'twere holy ground which those proud aisles em- 
brace. 

XIV. 

Vast mullioned windows on the assembly threw 

A sober light, like the departing ray 
Of Summer's eve, in many tinted hue 

Saddening the lively brilliancy of day. 

And from the v/alls stood forth, in long array, 
Full many a sculptured form of snowy white 

Like angels hovering on their heavenly way. 
And dwelling fondly on the pleasing sight, 
Ere back to holier scenes they urge their upward flight. 



l6o ALWYN, 

XV. 

Lofty and dim the far discerned roof 

Wrought of the branching arches and the lines 

Which indicate in complicated woof, 

The ogive paths, where arc to arc inclines, 
And of the tracery of sculptured vines, 

And acorn-bearing oak, appeared to spring 

From native growth, as when -the grove combines 

Her leafy arcade of the elm-tree's wing 

With all its load of fair retainers clustering. 

XVI. 
The altar, built of marble and of gold. 

Lit by symbolic tapers, rose on high 
Where graceful waving clouds of incense rolled 

Their sweetly-smelling savor to the sky. 

Signs of the death the Saviour chose to die 
Stood forth in pride to Calvary unknown. 

And the beloved Mother bent her eye. 
With the benignity a god might own, 
On the adoring crowds who knelt before her throne. 

XVII. 

The ministering priests before the shrine 

Bending in ranks of seemliest array, 
The silent multitude, whose souls combine 

Their ceremonial services to pay ; 

The solemn sweetness of the chanted lay, 
Lending expression to their thoughts of prayer, 

And the broad music-flood whose upward way 
All thoughts, all feelings on its current bare. 
With living beauty filled the glad resounding air. 



ALIVVN. l6l 

XVIII. 
If aught can please the Lord in worship paid, 

If aught His mind to mercy can dispose, 
It must be here." And " Here," the inquirer said, 
" The best that man of God and duty knows 

May I not learn ?" But still the question rose, 
Has God required this offering at our hands ? 

Can all this pride of human taste unclose 
The prison doors of sin, or break her bands ? 
Who knows that this is what Almighty God demands ?" 

XIX. 
Night was descending as he turned away, 

Deep musing of the pompous worship there, 
And of the multitudes who thronged to pay 

Their grand devotions in that incensed air, 

With graceful attitudes and well-toned prayer. 
Behind him full the swell of music came, 

From lofty windows poured the tinted glare, 
And high the minster rose, as if to claim 
Of heaven a hearing in her own proud name. 

XX. 

Alwyn withdrew with languid steps and slow. 

His early confidence of power was gone. 
All goodness seemed to be but hollow show, 

And earnestness possessed by vice alone. 

His heart, was cold and passive as a stone. 
But jibing fiends ran riot in his brain. 

With bitterest scoff 'on all religion thrown, 
And helplessness sought refuge in disdain 
Of all that reason proved so helpless to explain. 



l62 ALIVVN. 

XXI. 
From the enclosed and consecrated ground 

Slowly emerging to the crowded street, 
He wandered on in hopelessness profound, 

Nor hearing, seeing, caring where his feet 

Might carry him, so might it be retreat 
From bootless thinking. Sounds of rage and woe 

Aroused him from his. reverie to greet 
Haunts which the outskirts of the city strew, 
Like wrecks upon the shore of its cold ebb and flow. 

XXII. 
He paused a moment thoughtfully, and then 

Resumed his way with no^v awakened ear 
And eye. The lower sufferings of men. 

Who never mounted high enough to fear 

His fears, thus loudly clamorous and near, 
Usurped his thoughts, and mixed them with a new 

Train of reflections not more glad or clear. 
Till as the thinning city sparser grew 
Melting into the country, and the outward view 

XXIII. 
Peered into dreary darkness cold and void. 

He slowly turned his footsteps to retrace. 
And truths, which for a time his mind enjoyed, 

Recurring doubts fast hastening inio place 

Might have been suffered wholly to efface, 
As others of the kind, but that a low 

Cabin beside him drew his* earnest gaze. 
Whence issued weeping and the words of woe 
Subdued to tenderness such quarters seldom know. 



ALWVN. J63 

XXIV. 
He entered. 'Twas one solitary room, 

But ill-supplied with aught designed to stay 
A want of nature. And that squalid gloom 

The humbler haunts of poverty display 

Was deepened by the sorrowful array 
Of children weeping for the recent dead, 

From whom a mother had been borne away 
That day her body in the dust was laid, 
And sleep had their first night of desolation fled. 

XXV. 

The father stands beside him. And his eye. 
Though sunk with suffering and dim with tears, 

Is calm, and though his face is worn, a high 
Composure rests upon it. He appears 
A workman of the humbler class who nears 

The even of life. And yet the hoary lock 
Upon his brow was not the gift of years. 

Full well the work of years can sorrow mock. 

And though the spirit bear, the body owns the shock. - 

XXVI. 

Alwyn, in presence of a sacred grief, 

Felt that the step of stranger ought to pause. 

But the fond hope of yielding that relief 

Which, even if nothing could remove the cause, 
Might yet alleviate ; and that which draws 

The heart of man to man in times of pain. 

The consciousness of right, the heart's applause, 

Soon reassured him, and called up again 

Stronger the generous impulse, as its course seemed plain. 



l64 ALIVVJV. 

XXVII. 
But as he looked upon that countenance, 

Worn as it was with suffering, it did seem 
As if a recognition warmed the glance, 

Like something half-remembered from a dream ; 

Nay, can it be — is life so brief a gleam — 
The Norman whom he loved ia early days, 

The Norman of his more mature esteem, 
Long lost to sight ? And is it thus always 
That Providence the good of holy men repays ? 

XXVIII. 
Not words alone answered his kind address, 

But a warm look of heartfelt gratitude, 
A joy in grief, which words could not express. 

But found its goal swifter than language could. 

The spirit, long by crushing ills subdued. 
Clung to the hand of sympathy. As friends 

Together in the shade of death they stood, 
In that confiding conference which bends 
By sympathy of grief to love's most holy ends. 

XXIX. 
" The Lord is good. The inflictions of his rod 

Are mixed with mercy. I should cease to grieve 
My need of help when an Almighty God 

Is always near my trials to relieve. 

Yet once it had distressed me to receive 
The gift of charity, which now I take 

With humbled feelings, striving to believe. 
Though out of hopelessness my bosom ache. 
That yet for all, my hands some faint return shall make. 



ALIVVJV, 



165 



XXX. 

* The comforts of the rich we never knew. 

And yet when first our little home we made, 
'Twas full of happiness between us two. 

For then my work was steady and well paid. 

And careful hands at home did wisely aid. 
So things went on, for many years the same, 

Full of contentment. But the rod was laid 
Upon me at the last. For sickness came 
And tarried with me long, and left me weak and lame, 

XXXI. 

" Then business failed. My labor's worth decreased. 

Still, we could live, though suffering many a want. 
But times grew worse, and all employment ceased. 

The little saving better days had lent. 

Though husbanded with care, was quickly spent. 
And, though at aught my hands could do I wrought, 

And had I thus found work had been content, 
Such gains were seldom found, and dearly bought. 
And many a day passed by when toil was vainly sought. 

XXXII. 

" Then, one by one, our household things were sold, 

A scanty meal and seldom to obtain. , 

Our comfortable home grew bare and cold ; 

And even there we could not long remain. 

This hut received us with our little train 
Of helpless sufferers. And I may confess 

I wept in secret tears of heartfelt pain. 
When we had reached this point of our distress. 
She murmured not, but bowed with gentle cheerfulness. 



1 66 ALIVVJV. 

XXXIII. 
". And when I saw her laboring to give 

An air of comfort to this woeful place, 
And when we hardly had the means to live, 

Still striving to maintain a cheerful face, • 

I cannot tell my anguish. But the trace 
Of suffering grew deeper- Week by week 

I saw her health was giving way apace. 
She always spoke in words resigned and meek. 
But when she slumbered, oft her tears have wet my cheek. 

XXXIV. 

" The Winter now set in. And many a day 
I've left her with these little children here. 

In cold and hunger, and in the essay 

To earn something, traveled far and near. 
Offering my labor for the humblest cheer. 

Yet fruitlessly. And when the evening came. 
Without the means to wipe away a tear. 

Or meet my starving family's silent claim. 

Returned to feel a grief no tongue of man can name. 

XXXV. 

" Sometimes a kinder Providence would aid 

My efforts, yet I could not but behold 
What inroads on her health were daily made 

By silent anguish, hunger, damp and cold. 

And when I fondly to my heart would fold 
Her wasted form, my bitter tears would flow 

Even as her own, from ills no help consoled. 
But most of all that one so good should know 
Such destitution and such depths of hopekss woe. 



ALIVVN. 167 

XXXVI. 

" But no, not hopeless. That I should not say. 

For hope was to her spirit ever true. 
That was a light went with her all the way, 

And nearer to the end the brighter grew, 

And when around her dying bed we drew, 
We heard no words of sadness or dismay. 

And in her eye, as seeing clearly through, 
And out beyond into a better day, 
A world so calm and deep of holy meaning lay." 

XXXVII. 

The words were strange to Alwyn. " Wherefore such 
A wondrous gratitude to the Most High, 

Which not those sorest sufferings could touch ? 
And why with such a heart should this man lie 
Under the wrath which passes others by ? " 

He would have said. But such an hour must be 
Sacred to feelings which another eye 

Should not in their outgoing lightly see. 

He hastened his adieu to leave the full heart free. 

XXXVIII. 
But often did he tread the path again 

To that low cabin. For in doing good, 
In kindly minist'ring to want and pain, 

Had he discovered peace, which never could 

Be won from Learning in her holiest mood, 
A bliss which all might share. And yet, alas ! 

How ill so rich a vein is understood, 
The heart's best treasures trodden like the grass 
By pleasure-seeking crowds, who lose the good they pass. 



l68 ALJVVN. 

XXXIX. 

Of rectitude in such a course, or of 

The pleasure he awakened or enjoyed 
He listened not for doubts, por for the scoff 

Which callous unbelief might have employed. 

However his reflections were annoyed 
With questionings, his actions were most clear. 

And from that dreary, intellectual void — • 
Unbroken save by consciousness of fear — 
The task which could relieve was to his spirit dear. 

XL. 

A page of life had opened to his mind. 

Which his philosophy had never taught, 
And though to much his reason yet was blind, 

With lessons of a high instruction fraught, 

Not all in one perusal to be caught. 
The plans of God are of such vast extent 

As not to be embraced by human thought 
Without long patience and a spirit bent 
To study all the ways of their development. 

XLI. 

And, day by day, the duty self-imposed. 
But from an impulse he would not gainsay, 

A spring of intellectual health disclosed. 

The approving thought of something done to stay 
The course of suffering, served to allay 

Despondency which had of late imbued 
The current of his reasonings. The array 

Of argument, which fair embattled stood 

Against existence fled before one act of good. 



ALIVVJV. 



169 



XLII. 
But wherefrom came this practical belief 

In the reality of all these deeds ? 
Had he not followed Reason as his chief, 

And reached the end to which that chieftain leads, 

Annihilation of all hopes and creeds? 
Then wherein can the evidence consist 

From which a confidence so full proceeds ? 
He feels an independent power enlist 
His energies ere Doubt can rally to resist— 

XLIII. 
A power as native to the human heart, 

As sovereign, too, as Reason's proudest reign, 
In the economy of life whose part 

Is to supply what Reason must restrain— 

The sole producer in the mind's domain, 
Who unobtrusively forever toils; 

And, even when her crafty rival's chain 
' Is wound about her limbs, who quietly foils 
His labored skill in fence, and carries off the spoils. 

XLIV. 

Instinctive faith—native impulsive trust- 
In all the impressions by the sense conveyed, 

As broad realities of being, must 
Be prior to all reasoning, and laid 
As law imperative to be obeyed 

By all who think aright. New life awoke 
Within him as he saw. No more dismayed, 

He listened to the language nature spoke, 

And on his soul again the light of knowledge broke. 
8 



I/O 



ALIVVN, 

XLV. 

'Twas not that any doubt had been dispelled, 

For none had yet been solved. But he had found 
In the dark waters which around him swelled, 

At last a footing upon solid ground. 

He sinks no more, though gloomy depths surround. 
His work of charity, which daily sought 

From love of man, not truth, became a sound 
Instructor in philosophy, and taught, 
Despite the skeptic's creed, the highest things of thought. 

XLVI. 
And often, too, with Norman as his guide, 

New realms of destitution he explored, 
For suffering with bounty to provide 

With ever open hand and kindly word, 

And where his own means failed him, to record 
Its worthy objects for benevolence, 

And to neglected industry afford 
The path of labor and its recompense, 
Became to him a joy, a new-discovered sense. 

XLVII. - 
And then at times, as on his couch he lay 

And sleep delayed before the healthful cares 
Which with so warm an interest filled his day, 

He thought of Christ, and of His midnight prayers, 

And how He loved the poor and their affairs 
Took to His bosom ; and the toils and death 

To which He gave Himself to lighten theirs. 
And learned to know through more of love than faith 
The self-denying man — the man of Nazareth. 



ALJVVN. 



i;i 



XLVIII. 
And it did seem to him that he had found 

Both men and women, who from door to door 
Carried their works of charity around 

Among the lowly dwellings of the poor, 

Who were like Jesus — like in that they wore 
No badge of goodness, and that self-denied, ' 

With meekness the perversities they bore 
Of those to whom their charities applied, 
In mercy's mighty power o'ermastering hate and pride. 

XLIX. 
And then his wondrous doctrine of love 

Stood forth in that new light with meaning new. 
It was the chain descending from above, 

Which sentient being to one centre drew — 

God's free necessity— a law of true 
Compassion, not to be confined within 

Love to the lovely, whose best gains accrue 
To those, whom otherwise no love could win, 
The poor, debased, and outcast children of sin. 

L. 

It rose before him as the sovereign good 

The mystery of human happiness — 
Nor human only. " Is there aught that could 

The purest of angelic natures bless 

If destitute of love ? Or to express 
The truth in heaven's own language, God is love ; 

Nqr to be good and blessed can be less. 
And wbo for suffering mortals ever strove 
Like Christ to plant on earth the exotic from above ? 



i;2 ALWYN. 

LI. » 

" Then Christ historical, as God or man, 
Or both united, is alone the true 
Messiah of our happiness, who can 
Capacity for holy love renew. 
To Him the heart of suffering man is due. 
Yea, Blessed Master, whatsoe'er the creeds 
Define of Thee, I would repose my view 
Upon Thy truth of love sustained by deeds. 
Thine eye that weeps for sin, Thy yearning heart that 
bleeds. 

LII. 
*' Nor His the touch of human life to shun, 
To seek in purity a plea for pride. 
His tenderest words. His mightiest works, begun 
In fierce temptation, were full oft applied 
To publican and sinner, nor denied 
To Magdalene repentant, whom the rest 

Of her own gentle sex would spurn aside. 
More than unsoiled, outgoing virtue bless'd 
Where'er His footsteps moved, and every ill repress'd. 

LIII. 
" And who shall estimate the weight of woe 
_The gospel of that holy One hath stayed. 
How it hath soothed the mourner, lit the glow 
Of hope, where hope had long ago been dead. 
Hath filled the poor with gladness, and arrayed 
The meek with power, and deem it not a plan 

For man's salvation, and most wisely laid, 
Or doubt that He, with whom the work began. 
In whose rich love it sprang, was man — yet more than 
man ? 



ALWVJV. j^^ 

LIV. 
*' A gentle heart with tenderness o'erflowing, 

With sympathy for every human ill, 
An intellect of boundless grasp, all-knowing, 

Discerning to the very depths of will, 

Which soared above all reach of human skill. 
Whose wisdom none could fathom, and whose words 

Remain prolific of high meaning still ; 
Whose simplest lesson more of truth affords 
Than all that ethic lore of Grecian sage records. 

LV. 

" A man who without learning or ripe years, 

Poor, and with lowly rank to weigh him down, 
Who as an humble peasant youth appears 

Above philosophers of old renown ; 

Yea, teaching solemn verities unknown 
To Socrates and Plato, after all 

Wherewith old age the work of lore could crown— 
A man who erred not in the great or small, 
Transcends all human greatness since the primal fall. 

LVI. 
" To whom shall he be likened ? To the wise, 

The learned, or the gifted, or the good ? 
To heroes of ambition and emprise ? 
- To men who have persuaded or subdued, 

And bent the will of nations to their mood ? 
It dawns upon us in a light divine. 

The mighty stature at which Jesus stood 
Above all other men in power benign. 
In grandeur of effect and wisdom of design." 



174 



ALIVVN. 



LVII. 
As meditating thus one night he lay, 

And many a tranquil hour of late had sped 
In thoughts that held such unpretending sway, 

These words of Jesus came into his head, 

With light and comfort through his spirit shed, 
'* That God so loved the world." It was not new ; 

A hundred times had he that language read ; 
But now a meaning rose upon his view, 
Which evidenced itself triumphantly as true- 

LVIII. 
" God loved the world — so loved it that He gave 

His well beloved Son to human grief, 
To human toil, to suffering and the grave. 

That He, their mighty Substitute and Chief, 

From all their ills procuring full relief, 
Might make them partners in his blest abode. 

God loved the world ! Whate'er of unbelief 
May touch the fact, the doctrine is a broad, 
A tender, godlike offspring of the heart of God. 

LIX. 

" What heathen priest, what brain of sinful man 

Could ever dream — did ever dare to dream 
That the Almighty and most Holy One 

Loves sinners, all unlovely as they seem 

To one another, and must be to Him . 
Abhorring sin, and takes their guilt away ? 

Ah ! This is gospel — in itself a beam 
Of heavenly light, it signals brighter day, 
On which no night shall fall, nor saddening cloud delay. 



ALIVV.V. 1^5 

LX. 

" Christ is the truth. The truth in Him alone 
Stoops to the level of poor human thought. 

The primal truth, whose central radiance shone 
Upon the birth of time, is ever fraught 
With all that time contains. And He who wrought 

Creation's work, is truth as well as might. 

And what He gave His work, His gospel taught — 

The truth which shows all other truth aright, 

And brings heaven, life and immortality to light. 

LXl. 

" Self-humbled Son of God, atoning lamb, 

Who once for men descended from Thy throne, 

How shall I praise Thee, sinful as I am, 

All holy as Thou art ? Through Thee alone 
Is God to man in love and mercy known. 

In Thy commands all duty lies enshrined, 

From beauty's full perfection hast Thou shone, 

Thyself more fair than form of human kind. 

And Thou alone hast peace to calm the troubled mind. 

LXIL 

^ How ill we comprehend Thy Word of life. 

And what laborious helplessness we prove, 
What wars we wage, what unavailing strife 

Within our souls to take Thy hand of love. 

Not by the path of learning must they move, 
Not by the light of human wisdom see. 

Who would secure the wisdom from above. 
Humbler the way, and briefer far must be — 
Faith of the docile heart, which rests alone on Thee. 



lye ALWYN, 

LXIII. 
" How lofty Thy humility became, 

Without reserve for earthly honors made. 
No title of their gift adorned Thy name, 

No party lines along the nation spread 

Lent to Thy work their adventitious aid. 
Lowly Thy birth among the lowliest poor, 

Lowly Thy life, and on Thy people's head 
Rested the shade of fortune most obscure. 
And Galilee had learned in patience to endure. 

LXIA^ 
" And yet what transformations have been v/rought 

By Thy so humble life upon mankind ; 
Hard-hearted men made tender, word and thought, 

The once polluted chaste, the coarse refined, 

The timid valiant, and the 'wavering mind 
Fixed to one lofty puipose. That which sums 

Up air the best in human life designed, 
And all the grace that blesses happiest homes 
Spring up along the path by which Thy mercy comes. 

LXV. 
"For Thee has Genius wreathed the bay and palm, 

For Thee the sv^^eetest harps on earth been strung, 
Expectant harmonies of Hebrew psalm. 

And pre-ordained prophetic pseons sung. 

For Thee, before Thy wondrous birth, Thy young 
And virgifi mother raised the adoring strain. 

For Thee the gates of heaven were open flung, 
And hymning angels, in long choral train, 
Issued with glorious song to hail Thy earthly reign. 



ALWVN. 177 

LXVI. 

" A chorns worthy of a heavenly choir, 

A hymn to go resounding through all time, 
Announced Thy birth in spirit of a higher 

Degree of being, and a loftier clime. 

Thy Life laborious, suffering, yet sublime, 
In singleness, severity of aim, 

Though brief, and closed in early manhood's prime, 
Beyond all measure of mere mortal fame, 
An epic grander far than mind of man could frame. 

LXVII. 
" x\nd ever since, Thy love, and living faith 

In Thee have filled believing souls with light, 
Their life with hopeful labor, and their death 
With joy of hope, then dawning into sight. 
To Thee the prisoners, at dead of night. 
Prayed and sang praises. And the lowly few, 

Shunning offence to heathen law or might, 
Ere busy worldlings woke, would press the dew 
To meet in prayer with those whose equal love they 
knew, 

LXVTII. 
" And sing a hymn to Christ. And still of Thee 
The lonely singers in the long, drear night 
Of error chanted sad, but lovingly. 
And, as the Holy Spirit, in despite 
Of jangling discords, tuned the heart aright. 
Telling self-tortured men of glad reward. 

Spreading all heaven to Damian's ravished sight, 
And speaking love, where earthly love was barred. 
To the worn mind and gentle heart of Saint Bernard. 



1 78 ALWVJV. 

LXIX. 

" The tongue of Greece revived again in Thee, 
For Thee Old Latin vowed her latest strains. 

And first of recent powers to issue free 
From medieval and barbaric chains 
The harp that for the Lord its art retains. 

And civil culture waking from the dead, 
Did to Thy glory pay her earliest gains, 

In arts and learning on Thy gospel fed, 

Whence a new morning's dawn along the nations spread. 

XLX. 

" And to the race of man, immersed in sin, 

Enslaved to its imperious control, 
Harassed by foes without, and foes within, 

As if a leaguered nature were the whole 

Inheritance of every human soul. 
And woe were all that Nature had to give, 

Christ has appointed a triumphant goal, 
And by His sovereign grace reformative. 
Has rendered human life a glorious life to live. 

LXXI. 

" O Nature, in the light of heavenly love. 
How rise thy beauties more divinely fair. 

The light comes more benignly from above. 
And inspiration fills the buoyant air. 
More charming tints thy hills and valleys wear. 

For God now meets me tenderly among 
The scenes to which I also kindred bear. 

Would that His worship I might aye prolong 

With love's pure incense breathed from censer of sweet 
song." 



EPILOGUE 



Fain would my lay, beloved, once again 
Revert to thee — for thee it woke alone— 

With praise to thee would close its latest strain. 
Though never more to hear the loving tone 
Of thy melodious voice the tribute own, 

Nor see the smile thy radiant cheek illume. 
The garland wove not many days agone, 

In the fond hope to crown thy ripened bloom, 

With heavy heart I bring, and lay it on thy tomb. 

(179) 



NOTES. 

Canto II. Stanza s.-^ollco-lonian. By this phrase I do not mean to imply that 
Epic Greek was composed of ^olic and Ionic ; but that it is most characteristically 
marked by features afterwards appropriated by those dialects. 

Stanza i4.-Romance did not prosper in subsequent classic times. It is therefore 
the more remarkable that the Odyssey is one of the purest specimens of romance 
in existence. 

Stanza 17 -Great as the loss suffered by all departments of ancient literature in 
crossing the desert of the Middle Ages, perhaps none is more to be regretted than 
that which has befallen Greek Lyric poetry. Its remains glow with natural feeling, 
and fill the imagination with the suggestive beauty which pertains to fragments 
of perfected art. 

Stanza 31.— Horace, Odes I. 34. 
Canto III. Stanza sS.-Some of the imagery in this stanza was taken from an anony- 
mous book of travels called " Rome in the Nineteenth Century. 

Stan-^a .7 -For the American Revolution the people were prepared by a deep 
setse of wrong inflicted on them ; but the words of Patrick Henry nerved them 
for the crisis. 



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